Sword of Earth
by epicgamer484
Summary: one was the lingering remains of a betrayed Keyblade wielder, the other was a distorted red head wanting to become a hero of justice. Two lives that normally would have never crossed, but they did, and now a new Keyblade wielder has arisen to become the light that burns away the darkness , Fate stay night x kingdom hearts crossover. Chapter 2 Rewitten
1. Chapter 1

**Sword of Earth chapter 1**

**The Keyblade Graveyard, **a ruined, scarred world that was the sight of a fierce battle that left the world a barren wasteland with countless dead key shaped swords littering its landscape. How this came to be was due to a great battle that engulfed countless worlds and had its climax here. This conflict would later be known by future generations as the **Keyblade war.**

As for the Keyblade Graveyard itself, it was located near the heart of the multiverse where different versions of characters from both fiction and history existed, leading similar lives but at the same time whose lives are completely different from everyone else's.

This fact often lead to its fine share of chaos due to the never-ending battle between good, evil, and those in-between, just like what was going on now as two major battles were happening near a section of destroyed land that consisted of deep chasms that surround an extremely high platform that was raised high into the air as a heart shaped moon illuminated the field from the gap that was caused by splitting cloud particles.

However, the two battles in particular had already ended, as the mastermind behind the whole event was defeated along with his dark apprentice due to the combined efforts of two apprentices called Ventus and Aqua.

There was also a third member of their gang that was in a rather peculiar position as he was lying on his back of the elevated platform, he was well built wearing a full body athletic suit that was covered with a arm size bronze gauntlet, he also wore version of Japanese trousers that was belted up with the mark of mastery symbol, and a pair of armored boots on his feet.

However other then his wardrobe the strange part about him was his facial features that consisted of yellow eyes, tanned bronze skin, and silver hair that contrasted the rest of his clothes, this person was Master Xehanort, a keyblade wielder and someone who had successfully stolen the body of one of his former fiends apprentices called Terra by striking himself with his keyblade and transferring his heart to the old man's new body.

The reason that the old man did this was due to his desire to recreate the Keyblade war. During his travels through the worlds he encountered various documents and tablets detailing the events surrounding the war however every piece of evidence he encountered never explained what happened during the end.

When Xehanort was an apprentice alongside the younger version of Erequs during their days training under their old master. The wise mentor had warned both of then constantly to stay away from the keyblade war as no good ever came from it.

Of course Xehanort, being the curious person that he was, wasn't about to let those warnings stop him and had continued to research the war in secret for years after graduating to a keyblade master and decided to travel the multiverse while Erequs stayed in the land of departure.

Over the years he had discovered bits of the war that he never dreamed possible. During his research he had discovered the keyblade war was fought between various factions over control of a weapon of unparalleled power called** χ-blade, **which was the prototype of the keyblades used today.

Apparently, the forbidden weapon also served as the key to Kingdom hearts, the heart of all worlds and the main reason for the conflict as each side wanted the power of kingdom hearts for themselves. However for unknown reasons the **χ-blade **was destroyed and split into 7 lights of pure light and 13 darkness.

After careful research Xehanort had discovered that the 7 hearts of pure light that belonged to the 7 princesses of heart were the same ones that were once part of the **χ-blade. **The 13- darkness on the other hand were nowhere to be found even in the realm of darkness.

With this Xehanort had hit a dead end in his research and was at a loss. The image of him burying himself in countless books on the keyblade war appeared as he tried to find something he must have overlooked.

It was then that Xehanort was hit with an idea that would be able to demolish the dead end in his research, complete the **X- Blade** and finally start the keyblade war anew. Afte rall if he couldn't find the 13 darkness then he just had to make his own, but the only question was how.

Darkness was a powerful element that grants its user great power. However it also had a side effect as users of the dark energy would either die because their bodies couldn't handle that kind of power or lose their sanity if their mind deteriorates under the strain. Due to these defects, only someone with a strong enough heart could control darkness.

One such example was master Xehanort himself, as the keyblade master had mastered the power of darkness in a sort time since discovering it. If it was that easy to create the **χ-blade **then all Xehanort would have had to do was kidnap the seven princesses of heart along with 13 strong-hearted individuals with darkness in their hearts, then extract his victim's hearts and fuse them into the original keyblade.

Unfortunately, reality wasn't as simple due to the fact that the 13 darkness needed to create the **χ-blade **needed to be exactly the same in order to work, so if Xehanort was going to make this work he needed 13 hearts of darkness that were nearly identical to each others.

Deciding that while it still was a viable plan to work with, Xehanort decided that he would have to figure out some other way to create the **χ-blade **until he could figure out the solution to the 13 hearts of darkness.

It was during this time that Xehanort came across a quaint little place called twilight town during his travels, which was a village built along a mountain with railcars connecting various parts of the mountain and was bathed in eternal sunset rays.

It was there that he came across a boy named Ventus and decided to make him his apprentice since the boy showed the potential to wield a keyblade. During his time training the wind user Xehanort discovered that his apprentice possessed a powerful darkness within him and suddenly had an idea.

If he could build up the darkness in Ventus's heart and then separated it from the boy before it consumed him then he would be able to create not only a heart of pure darkness, but one of pure light as well. That would let him advance one step closer to his dream of recreating the **χ-blade **and restarting the keyblade war.

From there he continued to train Ventus to his absolute limits, while pushing him both physically and mentally until it eventually climaxed in a barren wasteland surrounded by neo heartless that he collapsed from the straining.

Seeing that his apprentice had reached the limits of his abilities, Xehanort proceeded with the heart split by plunging his keyblade deep within Ven's chest and extracted the darkness that existed in his heart. The darkness eventually formed into a boy in a red and black organic bodysuit while wearing a black helmet that was made of glass. Upon seeing him Xehanort decided to name the new creation Vanitas.

However, there was a fault in his plan as Ventus couldn't handle the strain of having his heart split in two meaning that the boy was currently dying. With his latest plan ruined Xehanort decided that he might as well let his student live out the rest of his days in peace and transported the two of them to the Destiny Islands where the master once called home when he was a young man.

As he laid Ventus atop a paopu fruit tree and left him to his fate, he was greeted with the sight of his student materializing his keyblade and shooting a stream of light into the nightsky.

After careful analysis of Ventus comatose body in order to discover this anomaly, he was greeted with a sight that both shocked and intrigued him at the same time as Ventus heart was merged with part of a heart that was not his own and had somehow filled in the void that was left in the wind users heart with Vinita's departure as he was the boy's darkness.

This new development caused a whole new slew of plans to develop in Xehanort's mind. First thanks to this unnamed benefactor Ventus heart is now restored to functional levels meaning that his plan to fuse him with Vanitas and recreate the **χ-blade **from their hearts. It also meant to the old man that it was possible to transfer part of one persons heart into another's but only could tell what that meant for his research.

For now, he needed to ensure that the boy was properly trained and nurtured to his full potential if he was to create the original keyblade and unfortunately he couldn't do it since he needed to focus on training Vanitas and he couldn't let Ven learn of his dark half's existence just yet.

So he did the next best thing and dropped him off at the land of departure where Erequs was training his two apprentices in the ways of the keyblade, he then entrusted the amnesiac boy to his former friend and would have been on his way if he hadn't noticed the eldest of Erequs pupils.

From what he could gather, the boy's name was Terra and he was a front line fighter who specialized in Earth magic, he was also a polite man who valued his friends but was also rash, headstrong, and had a taste for power. These traits meant that he had the potential to be a user of darkness.

Meaning that he would make the perfect replacement body for his heart.

Because of his old age Xehanort realized that he would probably die before he completed his plan to recreate the keyblade war, meaning that the only ways to live long enough to see his plan through to the end meant that he had only one option remaining.

And that was to steal someone else's body by transferring his heart into them and taking them over completely. However there was a catch as the old mans new body needed to have large similarities with his old one or the transfer wouldn't work.

However just when it seemed that he would never be able to find a suitable host lady luck had favored him that day as it turned out his old friend Erequs was training a young lad who possessed similar traits to his own, making him the ideal candidate for the transference.

After this his plan set into motion, first he would wait until both Ven and Terra were at an adequate level for his plans by waiting a few years for them to grow, then before the two elder students do their mark of mastery exam he would order Vanita's to create Unversed on mass and then spread them to different world so Erequs would send the two of them to investigate. He would also get his masked apprentice to goad Ventus into following Terra so that he would be free from Erequs influence.

Finally, once some minor tasks were taken care off such as killing master Erequs and his third apprentice Aqua so that they wouldn't get in the way. The old master would lure Terra and Ventus to the keyblade graveyard and subject them to their respective fates and finally recreate the **χ-blade.**

Now, even though there were a couple of deviances from his plan such as the continued survival of master Aqua as she was the only one to pass the mark of mastery that day, and Yin Sid's mouse apprentice King Mickey. However they were only minor deviances to his plan as he first fought Terra atop an elevated platform with Vanitas as back up.

He then put the next stage into motion by ordering Vanitas to reclaim his lost half and end Aqua's life, after his masked apprentice left to carry out his mission Master Xehanort stayed to face Terra in combat.

Even though he was holding back at the time so that he didn't damage Terra's body too severely, the boy still gave him a run for him money despite the old man having more experience and a wider range of spells. Eventually the fight came to an end when Xehanort lay there with Terra supposedly at his mercy.

When the old man spotted a great pillar of light spring up from the ground and close to the heart shaped moon hovering over the keyblade graveyard. He then pointed the light to Terra and told him that the **χ-blade** was now restored.

Not one to let such an opportunity to slip away, Xehanort used the distraction provided by Vanitas when he merged with Ventus to produce that light and drove his black keyblade into his chest and releases his heart, so that he could claim Terra's body and live to see the keyblade war in its glory.

However, the apprentice wasn't about to let himself get hijacked and had activated his armor in order to shield himself from Xehanort's heart, but it was a wasted effort as the bronze armor materialized a split second after the old man's heart entered Terra's body. The mystic armor then began to shed itself piece by piece until a younger, more powerful Xehanort was revealed having taken a fresh young body dipped in darkness.

"This heart belongs to darkness, all things begin in darkness and also end. The heart is no different darkness sprouts within it. It grows. It consumes, such is its nature. In the end, every heart returns to the darkness whence it came"

As the triumphant bodysnatcher walked away with his black keyblade in hand in order join his apprentice and observe the completed **χ-blade,** he stopped to stare at the shocking sight of an orange Bounded Field with chains everywhere that had suddenly appeared over the elevated platform that he was standing on.

Suddenly Xehanort sensed something that should be impossible as he turned around only to be greeted with the sight of Terra's discarded armor that he shed when he took the foolish apprentice's body, except it was currently kneeling with the earth users keyblade embedded into the ground

At that point, Xehanort finally understood what he was currently seeing, even though the old keymaster managed to completely take over the young dark users body when he transferred his heart into Terra's body, the strong feelings that the angry Keyblade user was feeling were absorbed by the boys armor along with his desires.

Despite the fact that Xehanort was currently angered that his perfect plan was becoming undone, he was also curious about the mystery that allowed the boys armor to come to life and had silently complimented Erequs's fine craftsmanship if the light master's creation was now able to move and act on its own, but right now he had a hunk of animated scrap metal to destroy.

"Your body submits; your heart succumbs, so then why does your mind still resist" the body snatcher shouted as he saw the animated get up slowly, pick up its keyblade, and get into a stance that was identical to Terra's.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(Meanwhile in another world called GAIA aka planet Earth, in a city located in Japan called Fuyuki City)

Emiya Kiritsugu was a man in his late to early 30s with spiky black hair, an unshaved beard, and wearing a brown overcoat over a two-piece suit. He was also an infamous mage called the Magus killer, who specializes in using modern weaponry and always succeeds in killing his target with brutal efficiency and with the least amount of casualties lost.

Also, this deadly mage-killer was currently standing over a supposedly fresh corpse. His Thompson contender-hunting pistol having been recently fired which resulted in a bullet being plunged into the heart of Kotomine Kirei.

The reason he did this was due to the circumstances surrounding the 4th Holy Grail war, a battle royal set up by three magi families' aka the Einzbern, Tohsaka, and Makiri.

The ritual they set up was created in order to obtain the holy grail (and no it is not the cup of Christ or the grail featured in Arturian legends) an omnipotent wish granting vessel and the 727 Holy Grail identified so far by the church.

However, there was a catch, In order to call the grail 7 masters and their summoned heroic spirit familiars, called servants, who had to battle it out until only one pair remained and was rewarded with the prize.

Sounds simple in theory, doesn't it? Well, that's where the simplicity ends as a majority of magi were cut throat jackasses who would do anything to win, meaning that the previous three wars ended up with no winner due to various circumstances. In fact the 4th could be considered the true 1st holy grail war since it was the first to follow proper rules and guidelines as well as the second to feature the holy church acting as a third party to oversee the conflict.

Emiya Kiritsugu had been hired by the Einzbern family in order to bring them victory in the grail war by offering the wish generated by the grail as a payment. They had done this by pairing him up with one of their homunculi's and the grail vessel for the 4th war, named Irisviel von Einzbern, who later became his wife and would bear his child, who was named Illyasviel von Einzbern.

Now, as someone who secretly wanted to create world peace it was a dream come true for the assassin. His countless attempts to stop disasters caused by rogue magi grew more fruitless and meaningless as he traveled from battlefield to battlefield, so with the wish granted if he won the war, all the suffering he had inflicted during his carrier would have meaning.

When the war drew near, the Einzbern family managed to excavate the lost scabbard of king Arthur from Cornwall and gave it to Kiritsugu so that he could use it as his catalyst to summon the strongest servant for the war.

However, there were a few problems that had presented themselves during the summoning. The first was predictable and one the magus killer planned for in advance.

Since servant Saber aka King Arthur was a knight, the servant obviously would have poor compatibility with the assassin due to conflicting viewpoints, Kiritsugu remedied this by deciding to work independently from his servant and pair the king of knights up with his wife.

The second problem was only a minor thing but significant nonetheless as they discovered upon Saber's summoning that the legendary king of knights Arthur Pendragon was in-fact a woman by the name of Arturia. Other then the fact that Kiritsugu was angry that the people of ancient Britain placed such a burden on a little girl and that nobody managed to find out her true gender during her reign he could use this fact to his advantage as Saber would get along well with Irisviel, since they were both women.

The third proved to be troublesome as they quickly found out that the king of knights couldn't go into spirit form. When the magus killer asked why this was, the servant said she had no clue either. Of course Kiritsugu knew that Arturia was lying but decided to drop it as he didn't want to antagonize his servant. With this new information they needed other means for Saber to stay hidden when Irisviel had a strange glint in her eyes and said that they just needed to dress her up.

With those sorted out, Kiritsugu decided to start his strategy for winning the grail war by arriving in Fuyuki city first with his assistant/lover Maiya before Saber and Irisviel, so they could grab their equipment and scout out the other masters and servants.

From there, various events followed during the war, from the 5 servant free-for-all at the Fuyuki docks, to blowing up the hotel where lancers master Keyneth Archibald was staying with his fiancé so that the curse placed on Sabers hand was removed.

Then there were Caster's mass kidnappings of Fuyuki's children, which forced the overseer to stop combat temporarily and offered a command seal as a reward for dealing with the rogue servant and his master.

Naturally, the magus killer wasn't interested in the reward since he already knew that the overseer was in cahoots with Tohsaka Tokiomi but decided to use the hunt to his advantage. Since the deranged servant who he found out was Gilles de Rais thought that Saber was his old comrade Joan of Arc, Kiritsugu decided to lure Caster to the Einzbern castle out in the woods so that the other masters and servants would follow and allow the assassin to pick off the masters one by one.

Saber, of course, didn't approve of this plan as she wanted to face Caster head on and end his heinous acts for good, things went south shortly after that when the resurrected serial killer showed up within the Einzbern bounded field with a group of hypnotized kids in tow. After seeing the servant kill one of the kids by crushing the boys head the king of knights went out there whether her master wanted her to or not.

Fortunately for the magus killer, the second part of his plan resumed when Lancers master appeared to challenge the master of Saber to a magus duel. Of course, being an unorthodox magus Kiritsugu wasn't about to fight like a normal mage and instead bombarded Keyneth with hit and run tactics, some use of the Emiya family crest, and an origin bullet fired from his Thompson Contender that completely fried the Archibald's circuits. However before the magus killer could finish his target off Lancer arrived to carry his master to safety.

While Kiritsugu wasn't able to finish Keyneth off or have Saber kill Caster, the night wasn't a complete waste as he managed to fry the mages circuits, meaning that his effectiveness in the war was crippled along with his ability to use and magic at all.

Eventually, the Caster fiasco ended when the magus killer managed to kill of the servant's orange haired master with two well-timed bullets to the abdomen and head, and then Saber regained the use of her right thumb allowing her to use Excalibur to destroy Caster and his summoned creature.

From there, the war continued for the assassin when he had Maiya neutralize and kidnap Keyneth's fiancé so that the magus killer could convince the lord to sign a geas scroll which entitles that Kiritsugu Emiya would not harm Keyneth Archibald El Melloi, and his fiancé during the duration of the grail war as long as the magus uses his last remaining command seal to order Lancer to kill himself.

Of course, the master of Saber wasn't about to let a couple of loose ends go, so after Lancer let out some curses and disappeared he had Maiya gunned the two of them down via a loophole in the geas that stated that 'he' couldn't harm the two of them but his assistant could.

Saber after beheading Keyneth to give him a quick death, was disgusted by her master's actions and openly confronted Kiritsugu on what kind of wish he would want if it meant using such despicable methods.

At first, the magus killer would have just ignored the king of knights but after Irisviel said that he should answer Sabers question since it was the first time that the white haired woman had seen the magus killer's line of work.

It was then that Kiritsugu decided to tell the two women about his hatred for war and that his wish was to bring an end to all that even if it meant bearing all the evils of the world if necessary. With that out the way he left the area with Maiya in order to scout out the other masters.

Soon after, Tohsaka Tokiomi contacted the Einzbern team in order to negotiate an alliance against Rider and his master since they were the greatest threat at the time. Of course they were not about to go along with a cut throat cheater like Tokiomi so they instead asked for a temporary ceasefire and to share all info regarding Rider, in exchange for Kotomine Kirei to be deported overseas. After that they waited for his answer.

However, this proved to be a mistake as a servant who mortally wounded Maiya attacked their base of operations, which resulted in Irisviel being kidnapped. Saber of course went after them while Kiritsugu pursued his own leads by first heading to the Tohsaka Estate, and then the Matou's, After torturing Byakuya Matou for information, he learned that Berserker and his master were behind the attack and that they had joined with Kotomine Kirei, Kiritsugu then killed the drunk and headed on his away to rescure his wife.

With that in mind, the magus killer searched the city for their hideout until a signal appeared over the Fuyuki park community centre signaling that they had the grail.

Not knowing whether Irisviel was alive or dead, Kiritsugu headed for the community centre while Saber entered through the parking area, eventually he encountered Kirei in a spacious room with black floors and bright square lights overhead, with that the magus killer prepared to duel the Executor.

However, the fight against Kirei was no walk in the park as the executioner was stronger and faster than the magus killer, plus he somehow used

A bunch of command seals to shield his circuits from Kiritsugu's origin bullet.

Fortunately, Kiritsugu was able to fight Kirei to an even match thanks to a combination of Sabers scabbard Avalon plus the Emiya family crest that allowed the magus killer to use Time Accel longer.

Unfortunately, during their fight the roof of the room they were in collapsed, causing a torrent of black mud to cover the both of them. When the magus killer regained consciousness he was greeted with the sight of his wife Irisviel standing on Arimargo Island, the place where everything changed for Kiritsugu.

From there Irisviel told him that she was in fact the Holy Grail and that it had taken the memories and personality of the vessel of the grail for its own, fake Irisvel then said that it had decided that Kiritsugu was the most befitting of the grail and decided to grant the magus killers wish.

However the truth behind the grail was nothing Kiritsugu could have imagined as it turned out that the holy grail was a cursed artifact that twists any wish it gets into one that gives the maximum amount of destruction, such as interpreting Kiri's wish into one where everyone on the planet except himself and his family is killed.

When he learned this, Kiritsugu decided to reject the grail by strangling the fake Iri that had taken his wife's likeness. Of course the grail wasn't about to take this supposed betrayal lightly and cursed the magus killer, which would slowly kill him in 5 years to come.

When the cursed marksman came to he was standing in the ruined room where he fought and found Kirei lying on the ground and was about to regain consciousness. Not wanting him to recover, the magus killer walked up to him and held the Thompson contender to his heart causing the defeated priest to hold up his hands in surrender.

Due to seeing everything that transpired between Kiritsugu and the grail, the executioner demanded to know why the magus killer rejected the grail after working so hard to get it. The master of Saber answered this by saying that using the grail would have caused too much loss and not enough gain.

He then said his farewells to the twisted priest by shooting him in the heart. After making sure that Kirei was dead he decided that if he wanted to stop the grail for good then he needed to destroy the vessel that was formed from Irisviel's body.

When he traversed the ruined hallways and went onto the platform that oversaw the main performance hall, the magus killer was greeted with the sight of his servant Saber at the mercy of Archer with the grail vessel located on the stage behind the golden servant.

It also appeared that Saber had noticed him and had silently hoped that he would use his command seals to get out of this predicament and defeat Archer. However the magus killer had other ideas.

"By the power of my command seal, I Kiritsugu Emiya order servant Saber to use her noble phantasm and destroy the Holy Grail"

Hope had then turned to confusion as Saber's mind tried to process what she just heard while her body obeyed the command and prepared Excalibur ready to carry out the execution.

Archer, of course, was surprised as this action as he didn't think she would use her noble phantasm while he is standing in front of the grail, seeing that Arturia still had enough Magic resistance to resist the command seal, Kiritsugu decided to use his final seal.

"Why Kiritsugu, why did it have to be you of all people, isn't the grail what you wanted all along" Saber was using all of her strength to prevent Excalibur from activating and destroying any hope of her saving her kingdom, However all she was doing was stalling for time as not even the magic resistance of the Saber class could resist the might of a command seal.

It was at that point that Archer realized the king of knights actions were not her own and were in fact that of her master. This meant that his master Kirei had been defeated underneath the stage which irritated the king of heroes somewhat as he still had use of the priest, not wanting to let that mongrel ruin his wedding the golden servant aimed weapons in his treasury at Kiritsugu and was about to fire when the magus killer gave his second order.

"By my second command seal I order you again."

"Noooooooooooo," Saber cried out in despair as she felt her hopes and dreams shattered before her eyes from hearing the last order of her traitorous master.

"Destroy the holy grail!"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(In the keyblade graveyard shortly before Saber's Excalibur destroyed the grail)

It had been a long hard battle between Master Xehanort in Terra's body and the lingering remnants of the earth user inhabiting Terra's armor. The body snatcher's power of darkness combined with Terra's fighting style made him a formidable opponent, especially if Terranort kept spamming Ars Solum, dark dash, and that Curaga spell and when he received heavy injuries.

But the animated armor wasn't a slouch either as it was able to imitate Terra's fighting style perfectly including the power of darkness despite it not having a heart.

Eventually, the lingering sentiment managed to emerge victorious due to Xehanort not being used to his newly acquired body and the fact that the animated armor didn't tire out because it wasn't made of flesh and bones.

As the defeated Terranort lay there at the mercy of the lingering sentiment, the armor just stood there motionlessly as the remains of Terra's mind tried to process what to do next. Actually the animated armor didn't care about wanting its body back as it just wanted to defeat Xehanort at any cost.

Just then a shot of light erupted from the ground below where they were, which was the area where Vanitas was successfully defeated and the** χ-blade **successfully destroyed by the combined efforts of Ventus, Aqua and Mickey.

However, what this meant was that the original keyblade was going to explode and engulf its victims into a light that would fling everyone caught in the blast to god knows where.

Realizing through instinct that if Xehanort were to escape then it would never retrieve that which it lost. The lingering sentiment ran towards the downed keyblade master, which resulted in the armor being caught in the **χ-blade's **energy backlash as well.

Only God or that old vampire Zelretch would know where the lingering sentiment would end up.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(Back in Fuyuki City shortly after Saber destroyed the Holy Grail)

Kiritsugu stood there atop the ruined remains of the concert hall for what seemed like an eternity as he studied the blast radius of Sabers noble phantasm, waiting for the smoke to clear so that he could make sure the tainted grail was destroyed

It was during this time that the magus killer saw a golden man embedded in the concrete floor. meaning that Archer had somehow avoided the blast from Saber's noble phantasm and was currently buried in a crater made by his golden armor.

It was also clear to Kiritsugu that the servant would want revenge against the magus killer for destroying the grail and denying him the chance to make Saber his bride. So as long as the magus killer kept himself hidden long enough for Archer to vanish after his independent action wears off he should be all right. It was at that point that Kiritsugu sensed something was very wrong and looked up to find the source of his uneasy feeling.

This caused the tired man to turn pale white as he was looking at a great black hole in the sky that was visible due to Saber's noble phantasm destroying the roof as a side effect of destroying the grail.

The Magus killer then remembered the true purpose of the Holy Grail that he had heard from Irisviel. As it involved using the defeated servants summoned for the war in order to open up a hole in the fabric of reality, which would allow a magus to reach Akasha.

After remembering this, Kiritsugu realized right then and there that he had made a grave mistake in forcing Saber to destroy the grail vassal with Excalibur. Without the grail keeping the hole in reality stable, it would eventually collapse causing a backlash that would have untold consequences.

So the magus killer could only watch in horror as a waterfall of black mud erupted from the hole in the sky and landed on the community centre floor while engulfing Archer in the process. In fact, if Kiritsugu had been paying attention, he would have seen as a brass object emerged from the hole in the sky.

Needing to get a better glimpse of the damage caused by his mistake, the former master ran out of the ruined centre and stood atop a hill. He then saw a sight that would haunt him for the rest of his days, as the black mud from the hole emerged from the ruined community centre, spread itself out towards the surrounding areas, and engulf them in fire and heat. The cursed substance then greedily sought out any life it could sniff out as if it had a mind of its own.

From his view point, Kiritsugu could only stare in despair and regret after realizing that in trying to destroying the grail and prevent a catastrophe that would have claimed countless lifes. His actions no matter how noble had caused a catastrophe anyway regardless of his intensions.

At that point, something broke inside the cursed man as he rushed to the disaster area in order to try and see if there were any survivors that were still alive in this hell.

As he ran through the black mud infested areas that were engulfed in flames, the magus killer rummaged through the rubble searching desperately for anyone that still lived, while unaware that there was someone else in the fiery ruins that was wandering aimlessly.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Holy Grail was a mystical artifact created by the Einzbern, Tohsaka, and Makiri families in order to open up a gateway that would lead them to Akasha the root of all things.

However, something can go wrong during the practical stages if you're not careful, such as Avenger corrupting the omnipotent wish-granting device with his presence after being defeated during the third war.

Another possible mistake would be that the grail could open up a gateway to somewhere else entirely if it synchronizes with another powerful artifact.

During this event, the Holy Grail was blasted into oblivion by Sabers noble phantasm in Fuyuki city. Around the same time the χ-blade in the keyblade graveyard was destroyed, causing a backlash that engulfed everyone.

However, what nobody ever expected was that these completely unrelated events caused a link between the keyblade graveyard and Fuyuki city, a link that resulted in a certain animated suit of armor being flung into another world.

Thankfully, the protective properties of the armor protected it from the black mud's effect as it was caught in the flow of cured substance, and sent flying out of the hole in the sky, and crashed into the ground below.

The lingering sentiment lay there for what seemed like forever before picking itself up and moving to anywhere that would help it find its target.

Despite the fact that the lingering sentiment was animated by Terra's lingering thoughts and feelings, it could only do so much as it did not possess sentience or any form of complex thought at all.

It was akin to an artificial intelligence that was programmed for specific tasks by its programmer. In the lingering sentiment's case, it was created for one purpose.

Defeat Xehanort and reclaim your body.

For that reason, it had created the lingering cage to trap the body snatcher and defeat him so that Terra could reclaim his body. However, things didn't work out so well as the light from the χ-blade sent the animated armor away from its target and into another world.

Now, it was now currently wandering through the burning wasteland that was caused by the grail in order to find its way home and defeat Xehanort in accordance with the remaining pieces of Terra's mind that were present in the armor.

And so it continued to walk, ignoring the cries for help from the burned and dying people caught in the disaster as they couldn't be saved. As it continued along its route, the lingering sentiment used the Ends of the earth keyblade to cut through any debris that was in its way as it searched fruitlessly for its target.

However, their desperate cries managed to have an effect on the armor as the lingering remains of Terra were reminded that it had already caused enough suffering during his travels because he was not strong enough.

Suddenly, the armor stopped at it stud there among the smoke covered ruins and looked around for any sign of life. It had responded to Terra's lingering feelings of righting the wrongs he made on his journey. Just then, the animated collection of metal plates sensed the sound of walking and came face to face with a boy.

Well more like face to upper hip, as the kid was only about more than a third of the armor's height. He had red hair coupled with ember colored eyes. The boy was also wearing a green jacket over a white shirt and jeans while also sporting severe burns on his arms.

It also seemed that his eyes were missing ovaries as he had a blank stare in his eyes[,] not to mention that the smoke must have damaged his eyesight somewhat.

His lungs seemed to have been damaged from the prolonged exposure to the smoke covering the area, which explained his [coughing fits. In other words, the kid was a wreck that could keel over at any moment, which he did

As the red head fell to his knees, the lingering sentiment instinctively caught the boy before he could touch the ground even though it was just a moving suit of armor.

It seemed that the burns the boy took coupled with the damage to his lungs by breathing in smoke, which meant that his life was in danger unless he had medical treatment right away.

The only way to save the boy would be to fuse with his heart like a symbiotic presence that would act like a life support to preserve the boy's health until help arrived to give him proper treatment.

However, this meant that the lingering sentiment would merge with the boy in heart and soul, meaning that there was almost no chance that the armor would be able to get revenge on Xehanort.

This lead to a confliction of interests for the animated armor of Terra whether to save a kid that it had just met from dying, or finding Xehanort and reclaim its body. It was during this conflict that a memory from not long ago surfaced.

"Fear leads to obsession, and obsession beckons the darkness"

While the armor was unable to feel fear, it was familiar with obsession as it was the stepping stone to its downfall and lead to its body being stolen in the first place.

It also knew that it couldn't just let the boy die as Aqua and Ventus would never forgive him if he did, so without a second thought the remains of the keyblade wielder Terra held the red head's hand and began the merging process while fluxing out its mana so anyone nearby can get here on time.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(At ground zero of the disaster)

Pain.

That was what the boy known only as Shirou knew as he couldn't remember anything else due to the trauma he suffered from experiencing the fire that destroyed his neighborhood, killed his parents, and almost claimed his life if he didn't make a run for it in order to get away from the blazing fire.

Soon, the run turned to a struggling walk as the boy moved on despite the desperate cries made by the people caught in the fire regardless of age or gender[. He] had also shed his memories one by one as his mind couldn't handle the carnage that he was witnessing.

Eventually, it proved too much for the boy and caused him to collapse into a bronze man that was standing in front of his path before blacking out from the unexpected rush of pain that came next.

From there, he stared at the sky as the bronze man vanished into golden particles that gathered around his right hand while jagged shields made of earth formed around his body.

It seemed that the armor was somehow keeping him alive, but, unfortunately, it wasn't permanent. If someone didn't come around now, then Shirou would probably die in the next 10 minutes or so.

Suddenly, a black haired man in an overcoat ran towards Shirou and bent down to get a better look. Soon, tears began to form in his eyes from finding out that the boy was alive while holding Shirou's now armored hand tightly.

"He's alive, he's alive, he's alive, " the teary man wept with joy as the dazed boy looked into the face of his savior and observed that the man was happy that Shirou was still living through this hell and that he was able to save just one person despite the death and despair that covered the area.

"I wonder if I could ever be that happy, " the red head thought before darkness engulfed him and felt like something was entering his body.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(Unknown location)

When the boy opened his eyes next, he was standing in a vast open wasteland with a setting sun in the distance that looked beautiful. When he looked up, he could see many things that stood out such as the giant spinning gears that hovered high into the sky.

Shirou then looked around some more to see if there were any more and spotted something that peaked his interest. There was a bronze suit of armor kneeling on a small hill with their hands resting on the top of a key shaped sword.

When the red head walked up to the person by climbing the hill, he was face to face with the armor-wearing knight that was unmoving[. D]eciding to see if he could get a response Shirou talked to it.

"Excuse me mister, can you tell me where we are?" the boy called out, but unfortunately didn't get a response. He then waved his hands in front of his helmet to tell whether the armored man was awake or not. That didn't get anything either.

Deciding that drastic measures were necessary Shirou apologized to the armored man in advance and grabbed the key shaped sword in order to yank it from under its grip. However, while this proved ineffective in moving the armored man, it did cause a strange light to emerge from the strange blade it was holding and caused Shirou to black out again from being exposed to the white light.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(Fuyuki City hospital)

When the amnesiac red head returned to consciousness, he was currently being carried into a hospital bed. His body was wrapped in bandages around the areas where he was burned, despite him wearing clothes.

The doctors and nurses tending to him had applied a tube to his mouth in order to feed him without moving his jaw. However, his healers were unable to work on his right arm up to his shoulder since a strange bronze gauntlet was covering that area despite their best efforts to remove it without hurting Shirou.

It had seemed that the black haired man had carried the young red head to the nearest hospital to get healed. The hospital staff worked day and night to treat the burnt flesh covering his body by applying anti-burn ointment to his wounds after undoing the bandages and applying a new set after the burn treatment was complete.

However, no matter what the doctors tried they couldn't get the bronze armor covering Shirou's right arm off. In fact some of the more extreme doctors suggested amputating the limb up to the shoulder, which scared Shirou as he didn't fancy losing his arm. Eventually, they decided to leave the arm gauntlet alone since the boy suffered enough and proceeded to work on the rest of his body.

From his hospital bed, Shirou had witnessed the pained cries of his fellow child survivors as they thrashed around while the nurses tried to heal their wounds. Some had simply cried out for their mommy and daddy while others simply whimpered in pain. Of course, such a thing was irrelevant to the resting red head since his parents died in the fire.

Eventually, the red head had healed enough that the tube in his mouth was removed along with some of his bandages allowing the boy to open his mouth for the first time in days. In fact, the nurse attending him was amazed by his recovery as most of the kids in the hospital ward were still covered in bandages from the burns they suffered.

The red head then saw various adults enter the ward; these people consisted of the various parents and guardians of the children that were treated in the hospital for victims of the fire

They then proceeded to walk around the room looking for their child. Some managed to find their kids, resulting in tearful reunions, some greeted their charges neutrally while saying that they found what they looking for, and some left the ward with silent tears after finding out that their children were nowhere in the ward.

Many adults even spared glances towards Shirou but eventually turned their heads in disappointment after finding out that he wasn't what they were looking for.

This had continued for a few days until the ward only had a few kids that weren't collected by their parents including Shirou. Since the red head wasn't collected by anyone, after some time had passed then Shirou would become a ward of the state and be sent to an orphanage.

As the amnesiac kid lay there in his hospital bed contemplating his future, he then heard the sound of footsteps getting louder and louder. As he turned his head expecting to see his doctor, he was greeted with the sight with a black haired man with an unclean beard that looked like he hadn't shaved for days.

He also wore an overcoat that smelt heavily of ash and smoke along with other clothes that were equally dirty. Eventually, the unclean man walked up to the red heads hospital bed and addressed the red head while smiling. "You must be Shirou-kun"

After looking at him, the orphan had to admit that seeing someone like him smile was strange, as if the person hadn't learned to truly smile in ages. However, it was his eyes that really interested the 6 year old.

As he had seen those same eyes during the fire when he was saved from becoming another victim.

Eventually, the black haired man decided to introduce himself.

"My name is Emiya Kiritsugu, but that isn't important right now as there is something else I need to ask you so I'll keep this short by asking you directly"

He then took a deep breath and asked, "Which would you prefer? To go to an orphanage, or be adopted by this man who you haven't met before?"

At this unexpected question, Shirou's mind temporarily stopped as he tried to process the absolute bombshell that he was just given.

"Huh?" was the only intelligent thing he could say. After that, Kiritsugu decided to elaborate more.

"Well, which would you prefer, would you like to walk out of here with me or wait for someone else to pick you up?"

Upon hearing this, Shirou needed to get something clear first before giving his answer.

"Are you perhaps a relative of mine?"

Hearing this the magus killer shook his head "No, I'm just a stranger who just happened to come back to this town."

The red head had looked at the man who offered to adopt him more closely and saw that apart from his dirty and scruffy appearance his eyes were bloodshot as if he had been crying not too long ago, and had no light in them, it was if the person in front of the orphan had no future at all.

Seemingly coming to a decision, Shirou gave his answer. "Okay, I'll come with you"

The reply caused Kiritsugu to smile again. The tension in his body left in a sigh of relief.

Frankly speaking going with this person and going to an orphanage wasn't that much different since the red head would have ended up with strangers for parents anyway, plus Emiya-san did save him so he would be glad to have him as an adopted father since his real parents were dead.

"I see, that's good, really good, I'm afraid that your old clothes were burnt up in the fire to be usable so I asked the doctor to bring a spare set of clothes for you to wear before buying you a new set of clothes. After we're ready, we will be going home straight away since you should get used to your new home-."

As the magus killer rambled on, he proceeded to pack all of the red heads things in a small bag with fierce vigor as if trying to fit everything in the carrying bag. It was also clear that the man had almost zero experience in packing as he just shoved some things in regardless if they got creased or not.

Eventually, the widow noticed that the red head still had that armoured gauntlet on. It was an odd sight on the boy , since Kiritsugu had saw him wearing that thing while being saved from the fire. He had never noticed it before since the magus killer was preoccupied with getting the 6-year-old medical treatment.

He had even thought that the hospital staff already managed to remove it by the time that the red head was fully recovered, but if even they couldn't remove it then that could mean two things, either the gauntlet had a special lock that needed to be undone it could be removed or the armor was some type of mystic code that Shirou somehow managed to acquire and couldn't take off. The facts made Emiya Kiritsugu worry, as they required further investigation before he could do anything.

With that in mind, he got the red head dressed while making sure that the boys clothes were covering the bronze gauntlet and walked out of the hospital doors 5 minutes later. The doctor that Shirou had talked to a while ago had a dazed expression on his face which had ended when Kiritsugu snapped his fingers.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you something" the magus killer said to his newly adopted child in a voice that was completely calm, the complete opposite of the somewhat goofy voice he had a few minutes.

"Yeah?" Shirou asked as the man's actions got the red heads full attention now. Eventually, Kiritsugu's face turned to one of complete seriousness as he looked at the 6 year old.

"I need to tell you something before coming with me, it's a secret that must be kept at all costs. Do you understand?"

After receiving a small nod in reply, the 30 something year old man smiled a bit and leaned towards the red head so only he could hear what came next.

"The truth is that I'm a magi. " He said, completely serious with a neutral expression.

"Wow, that's amazing." Shirou said as it was the only question he could make since he was only 6 years old. It was then that he remembered the strange metallic gauntlet covering his arm and decided that he could use some answers.

"Old man, can I ask you something?" The six year old asked the older man who looked at him curiously before saying.

"Sure, Shirou, what do you want to ask?"

Shirou then pulled up his sleeve to reveal his armoured limb and say "Is this thing on my arm magical?"

The older man's features darkened, as he expected something like this but not so soon.

"I'm afraid that I can't answer that now Shirou, but I promise you that once we get home we can take a look at it and find out what it is and how it can be removed. " The magus killer promised while rolling the red head's sleeve back up so no one walking by can see it.

Deciding to heed the older mans advice, the red head walked with Kiritsugu into the cold spring morning towards their new home.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

From the day that Emiya Kiritsugu took him with him from the hospital[,] the young red head became known that day as Emiya Shirou as he came face to face with his new home.

[Truthfull, it] looked like no one had lived here for years as the garden was covered in overgrown grass and weed[. The] inside was full of dust and wooden tiles on the floor that included some that were broken and rotting[. There] were also empty rooms that were in bad shape from the broken doors and missing windows that littered the main building[. In other words,] words the place looked like a haunted house.

Kiritsugu explained to the boy that the house had been empty for many years before he bought it and that it had been used in the past as a samurai decided not to ask anymore on the subject as it seemed that his new dad didn't know much about the subject either.

Fortunately[,] the house didn't stay like that for long as one of Kiritsugu's friends had sent some people round to fix the house up[. This] person that Shirou's adopted father was acquainted with was a local business-man call Raiga Fujimura[. The] red head had first met him a few days after he got adopted after the old man invited the two over in order to talk about some business transactions with Kiritsugu.

At first[,] the red head was nervous around the old man due to his intimidating nature[,] but [he] warmed up to Raiga quickly once he got to know the old guy[. The] meeting also served as the 6 year old's first meeting with the hyperactive force of nature known as Taiga Fujimura who was Raiga's 13 year old granddaughter and a very energetic woman as the teenager ran off with Shirou to god's know where while crackling like a mad scientist.

The teenager was quite curious about the bronze gauntlet around Shirou's arm and asked where he got it[. The] red head answered truthfully that he had no idea where the armour came from since he was wearing it during the fire.

Upon getting to that subject, the teenage granddaughter wizened up and said that he didn't need to go into further detail since it would probably bring up painful memories about the fire and the two of them decided to let the subject go for now.

Eventually, after a few weeks, the Emiya Residence was restored to perfect living conditions thanks to the hard work of Raiga's contractors, and it was good timing too as the magus killer decided to go straight to work trying to remove the gauntlet on Shirou's arm.

"Listen vary carefully Shirou, what I am about to do is try and analyse this thing on your arm so see how it works so make sure to stay very still." Kiritsugu said seriously to the red head in the room that the old man decided to use as his quarters.

Quite frankly, it was pretty dangerous to fiddle with the armour around Shirou's arm since it was obvious to the magus killer that the bronze thing was an unknown mystic code that had any number of features.

This was why he was using structural analysis to determine the purpose of the gauntlet so he could figure out how to get it off. With that in mind, he activated the metaphysical switch in his brain, which was the trigger to activate his circuits.

However, thanks to the curse of Angra Mainyu he got at the end of the Fourth war, most of his circuits along with the small portion of the Emiya crest had received major damage and the damage was still spreading. If this continued then all of his circuits would be rendered useless in 2 years followed by a slow painful death in 3 years.

But, that wasn't important now as the dying man used his still working circuits to analyze Shirou's arm. However, there was a problem as the armor covering Shirou's limb was pushing back Kiritsugu prana preventing the magus killer from analysing it.

After clicking his tongue in annoyance, the magus killer looked at Shirou apologetically and said "I'm sorry Shirou, for some reason this mystic code on your arm has a high degree of magic resistance which is preventing me from analysing it"

Upon hearing this, the son of Kiritsugu said "Its okay. You tried your best and that's what counts" before remembering the unfamiliar term that his dad said during their talk. "Hey, dad, can I ask you something?

Curious about what his son wanted to ask him the magus killer raised an eyebrow and replied. "Yes, what is it Shirou?"

"I just want to know what you meant by magic resistance and mystic codes, Are they some magi terms?" The red head asked which caused Kiritsugu to think about this seriously as to whether to answer his sons questions or not.

Truth be told, Kiritsugu didn't want Shirou to learn anything relating to the moonlit world especially magecraft, which was why he refused the youngest Emiya's request to train the boy in the art of thaumaturgy every time he asked.

This had started after they got back from the mass funeral event for the 600 people who died in what is now known as the Great Fuyuki City Fire. Many people in black had attended including relatives and friends of the deceased, parents and their kids who managed survive the fire and were collected at the hospital ward where Shirou was, along with others that had lived in that area but were away due to various circumstances.

Of course, teaching the boy 'about' mage craft was safe in Kiritsugu's book since learning things never hurt anyone. However he still had to be careful on what to teach Shirou.

"Okay, I'll tell you about those terms Shirou, so be sure to listen." The black haired man said, addressing his son. He went into a Japanese sitting position and listened carefully for what his adopted father had to say.

"Magic resistance is the metaphysical ranking that measures a persons resistance to prana and other effects caused by magecraft." The magus killer paused letting this sink in before continuing.

"The degree of magic resistance varies from person to person, as those with high levels of prana tend to have potent magic resistance because of this, while those with little to no prana in their bodies like most 1st generation magi and normal people are more susceptible to effects like hypnosis and curses." Kiritsugu Emiya then stopped so that his son could comprehend all that.

"Well, was there anything you didn't understand?" the cursed man asked this as he could explain a few things if his son didn't understand anything.

However, the red head simply smiled and replied back. "Nothing so far, old man, but what did you mean about mystic codes?" Shirou asked which got a reply from his father.

"Well, Shirou, Mystic codes are a sort of tool that magi use in order to amplify their thaumaturgy or produce specific effects. Some magi often spend years' worth of research and funds in order to produce a mystic code that match either their style of magecraft or that of their families so the code can be passed on from generation to generation."

Kiritsugu then pointed at the bronze gauntlet covering Shirou's hand and continued, "From what I could guess, that thing on your arm is a symbiotic mystic code with a high degree of magic resistance that has functions completely unknown to me, unless I can find out some way to get around that resistance in order to scan it I'm afraid that there's nothing I can do at this moment."

As the older man apologised, the red head suddenly had an idea from hearing that the thing on his arm was some kind of symbiotic construct. "Dad, I think I have an idea on how to remove this."

Worried about the kind of reckless plan that his son would have but curious about what it is, the old magus killer decided to oblige his young charge."Very well, what is it that you have in mind?"

With that question heard, Shirou looked his father dead in the eye and said. "Teach me magic, of course."

At this, the retired magus killer could only sigh in exasperation. "Shirou we've already been through this. I refuse to teach you how I do thaumaturgy."

It seemed that it was just another request for his son to learn magic from him regardless if he refuses every time. Still, you have to give the lad points for never giving up.

Expecting this, the red head decided to explain his reasoning to his reluctant father. "Dad do you remember when you said that you think this thing is a symbiotic mystic code, well, I think that I can get it to work if I use my own prana reserves but I won't be able to use it if you don't show me how it works."

Hearing this, Kiritsugu thought about it for a minute. While it was true that his son had a point, the retired assassin still wasn't keen on teaching Shirou thaumaturgy since he wanted his son to have a normal life. On the other hand, if he couldn't get that gauntlet off Shirou then his son wouldn't be able to have a normal life anyway.

At that point, Kiritsugu went over the alternative means on how to remove it, amputating the limb was out of the question and he didn't possess any of the proper tools necessary to remove it since he wasn't a proper magus.

After seeing that there was no other option at the moment, the magus killer slumped his shoulders in defeat and said with a serious face. "Very well, Shirou, I will teach you magecraft, but I want you to promise me something"

Listening very clearly to what his adopted father had to say, Shirou said. "Sure, dad, what is it?"

The oldest Emiya looked at his son with an emotionless face and continued.

"Magecraft is an art that involves walking with death, meaning that you could very well lose your life or cripple yourself permanently if you're not careful. Therefore, I want you to promise that you will listen to everything I have to say and follow my instructions to the letter. Do I make myself clear?" The magus killer finished, waiting for his son to answer.

For Shirou, learning thaumaturgy was something he had already set his sights on since finding out the man that adopted him was a mage, so for the red head there was no hesitation.

"I understand, dad. Please teach me all you can."The red head said while bowing his head, which caused his father to say, "Are you sure about this? Magecraft isn't something you can just use in the blink of an eye and can be very dangerous if you do it wrong,. You can always quit anytime you want if you feel like it"

At this, Shirou looked at his father with fire in his eyes and replied."I already decided on this, old man, so don't hold back on me just because I'm your son. Besides, if you don't give me 100% then how am I supposed to learn enough to get this thing off my arm"

Upon seeing the determination in his eyes, Kiritsugu had to admit that it was nostalgic seeing his son be that insistent on learning magecraft. In fact, it had reminded him of much happier times when hewas a kid when his old friend Shirley had begged his father Noritaka to teach her thaumaturgy and let her help him in his work.

He would look like an utter prick if he refused Shirou tutelage. He just hoped that his son didn't end up like his first love

"Very well, I will teach you the art of thaumaturgy starting with the basics so be sure to listen up. The first thing I am going to teach you is how to open up your magic circuits"

"Magic circuits? You mean those things you used to scan my arm?" Shirou asked with a curious nature, which got a nod from his father in return.

"Correct, magic circuits are what makes someone like me a magus as they are the converters that produce prana needed to power our mysteries."

"They are often divided into ranks of A-E in order to determine the quality of a magi's circuits as well as how many they have." Kiritsugu then paused in order to let this sink in before continuing.

"The magi with the highest number of A-C quality circuits are often associated with families with a long history behind them due to years of selective breeding in order to produce heirs with the highest number of circuits possible. Therefore by this logic a 9 generation magi would have an advantage against someone with a lesser family history." Kiritsugu stopped his lecture, turned to his son, and said. "Is there any questions you want to ask?

After listening to his dads lecture on the mechanics of magic circuits, there had been something that was bugging him for a while now. "Actually, dad, there is a question I need to ask you."

Curious, Kiritsugu asked what was it before the red head replied.

"You keep talking about magi families and about how they are born with the most circuits but what about normal people, don't they have circuits as well?

"Not necessarily," his father answered back. "You see the magic circuits a person has is determined at birth and the number doesn't change, which is why magi families do selective breeding in order to increase the chance of their descendants being born with more circuits then their predecessors, a person born with circuits outside a magi family is rare but not unheard off since those families with long histories had to start somewhere"

Upon hearing the answer to his question, Shirou was in deep thought about what his father had told him and decided to ask Kiritsugu something. "Old man, if what you say is true about normal people rarely being born with circuits then do you think I have any?"

When the retired magus killer heard this, he got up and said. "That's what we aim to find out. We'll have to postpone your lesson for today Shirou, I need to gather some things needed for something that would help find out whether or not you have circuits"

He then left the 6 year old alone in confusion as to what his adopted father was going to use.

It was the next day when the oldest Emiya called the red head to his room where the apprentice magus was greeted with the sight of his father holding a vial of something that smelled horrendous.

"Shirou, today is a very important day as we are going to find out whether or not you have circuits or not."The retired magus killer said, addressing his son with a straight face

"Really? How are we going to do that?" The red head asked as he sat down in front of his father waiting for the reply.

"With this," Kiritsugu answered, pointing to the vile of nasty looking liquid that he had placed between the two. "It's a recipe that my late father made me drink when I was your age in order to open up my circuits and taught me the recipe in order to pass it on to the next generation."

Shirou had noticed that his adopted father developed a sour look on his face when his father was mentioned but decided not to dig [too]deep into it and listened on.

"If you drink this, you'll be able to tell if you have circuits or not as the concoction will open your dormant circuits upon digestion. Of course, if it turns out that you don't have any then our training will be over." Kiritsugu had paused in order to let this sink into his sons head before waiting for his son's decision.

The red head stared at the nasty looking concoction in front of him for a minute before nodding to his dad, signaling that he had decided to drink it. With that in mind[,] Kiritsugu picked up the vial and handed it to his son.

"Personally, I'd advise drinking it all in one go rather than prolong it. Trust me that stuff is nasty, especially the aftertaste."The older man admitted with a cringe which got a smile from his son, who grabbed the vile with both hands and looked down on it.

"Well, bottoms up," Shirou thought before placing the vile to his mouth and started drinking it right away, despite him wanting to spit out the horrible tasting liquid as it was among the nastiest things he had ever tasted. Still, if he managed to survive a fire that killed over 600 people, he could get through this.

Upon drinking the last drop, Shirou nearly dropped the glass vial as it felt like several places in his body was on fire. After seeing this Kiritsugu immediately grabbed his son and placed a medium sized bottle in the boys hand and told him to drink every last drop of it.

5 minutes later, the 6 year old was panting on the ground while his father picked the boy up and laid him down on a futon so the boy had somewhere comfortable to rest

"Well, congratulations Shirou, it seems that you do have circuits after-all."

After hearing this, the red head looked at his father to make sure he heard that right and looked at himself in astonishment

"Really? Wow," he then thought about something he should know about now that he has circuits and asks his father. "So, old man, how many circuits do I have?"

"Hang on a sec, let me check.]

" The retired magus killer said before placing a hand on Shirou's chest and used structural analysis to locate the magic circuits that were activated from the concoction that his son drank.

"Well, according to this you possess a total of 27 circuits that are of surprisingly high quality even by magi standards" The eldest Emiya said, while impressed.

Unfamiliar with the significance of the number, Shirou asked if that was a good thing, to which his father replied. "Of course, you see Shirou normal magi are usually born with a total of 20 circuits on average meaning that you possess 7 more circuits then the average magus, which is even more impressive considering that you wasn't born in a magical household"

Even though Shirou was excused at the moment, he could still hear what his father had to say even though he didn't understand half of it fully. "Does that mean I can use magic now?" the boy asked.

"One step at a time, Shirou," his father explained. "You've just opened your circuits for the first time so your body needs to rest in order to get used to your magic circuits. We'll continue again when you're fully rested and 100% well"

After saying this, Kiritsugu picked his son up and headed for Shirou's room so that he could get some rest.

The next couple of weeks that occurred involved Shirou learning to switch his circuits on and off in order to produce prana. Magi do this by having a metaphysical trigger in their minds which they use to self-hypnotize themselves into becoming conduits for Thaumaturgy.

The trigger that the red head chose involved imagining the barrel of a gun being loaded while the hammer was being pulled back and released upon utilization of Shirou's circuits.

The father and son duo concentrated on opening Shirou's circuits one at a time so that the red head could get used to them being present since magic circuits produce waste heat when in use.

Soon the fateful day arrived when Emiya Shirou decided to try and activate the gauntlet on his arm and hopefully find a way to take it off, which was why they were standing in the compound garden at night so that they had enough space to do something should things go wrong.

"Are you ready for this Shirou?" The magus killer asked with a serious expression, to which his son answered with an equal facial expression

"Yes, dad!" Shirou looked at the gauntlet on his arm and contemplated on whether he was ready or not.

From what Kiritsugu could gather with what little information he had, the gauntlet on Shirou's hand was in a dormant state, which could probably be activated with the right insertion of prana.

Therefore, if the youngest Emiya could activate the gauntlet with his prana he might be able to manipulate the code and hopefully get it off. Of course, that depends on if the armored hand would accept his prana in the first place.

Deciding that they had made adequate preparations, the retired magus killer gestured his son to begin. With that in mind, Shirou decided now was a good as time as any to activate his circuits.

"Trace on," the red head said with his personal aria for enacting his mysteries. The father and duo had spent hours trying to come up with an adequate activation aria for the boy since they had to be personal and unique to the magus. Eventually, they settled with 'Trace on' when Shirou had said random names one after the other and trace on was the only one that resonated the most with his circuits.

When his father asked why his son choose such a strange aria, the youngest Emiya admitted that he had no idea why he suddenly said it in the first place but for some reason the words seemed right to him.

So for that reason Shirou began with the self-hypnosis to turn his body into a conduit for thaumaturgy and converting the Od (life force) in his body into prana via 3 of [the] circuits that he was able to open safely after 2 weeks and concentrate the energy into his right arm where the gauntlet was.

"It's working." The youngest Emiya said with joy as his prana was being absorbed by the armor on his arm like a thick sponge absorbing water. Eventually, something happened that caused the two Emiya's to jump in surprise as the gauntlet let out a bright light.

"SHIROU!" His dad shouted in fright as he ran towards his adopted son in controlled panic in order to try and save his son and contain the aftermath. The panicking man calmed down slowly as he blinked once then twice at the sight that greeted him which was surreal even by his standards as a magus.

After all, it was not every day that you see you're 6-year-old adopted son stand there wearing a bronze, black and gold suit of armor that was tailor made for his height and width. It seemed that the red head was confused as well as he was looking at his now armored body from head to toe through his helmet even though it offered little vision.

That was why the red head moved his hands to his helmet and felt a slight clicking sound as the armor covering his head come off revealing the stunned 6 year old's face to his father.

As Shirou gazed at the bronze and black helmet in his hands, the confused expression turned to triumphant glee as he looked at his father and said.

"Hey, check it out dad. I look just like a knight from those medieval times"

This comment had triggered a memory in the eldest Emiya as he was reminded of his former servant Saber, who was the king of knights and followed the code of chivalry (despite the fact that she predated chivalry) and how Kiritsugu argued with the servant after Lancer's death about his dislike for chivalry due to it promoting conflict.

Putting those thoughts aside, the eldest Emiya addressed his son. "That may be so Shirou but how do you feel at the moment?"

This was a main concern for Kiritsugu as he had no idea what the suit of armor his son is wearing could do.

After thinking for a minute, the red head answered. "Well, for starters, these armor plates aren't as heavy as you'd think, since I can move about in them pretty easily. Plus, I think I can get the rest of the armor off since the helmet came off pretty easily"

"Well then, let's try it out." Upon hearing Shirou, the magus killer nodded and said[,]before helping his son remove the rest of the armor,one piece at a time.

By the time they had finished, Shirou was standing there in his normal clothes with the rest of the armor laying there on the grassy floor, Even the plates that covered the red head's arm for weeks since the fire had been removed revealing untouched skin for all to see.

This proved that the experiment was a complete success as Kiritsugu congratulated his son on a job well done.

To which, his son replied. "So, since I managed to get this off finally, are we still going to continue with my mage-craft training?"

[It] was a very good question as the only reason Kiritsugu even agreed to teach Shirou thaumaturgy in the first place was to get that armor of the 6 year old's arm. Now that they succeeded the eldest Emiya might decide to stop Shirou's training altogether now that they achieved their goal.

In-fact, Kiritsugu was very tempted to go along with this plan from the start, but, after training Shirou and teaching him the ways of the magus, he decided that he might as well hear his sons opinion first before making a decision.

"It depends. Are you sure you want to continue as learning thaumaturgy isn't a walk in the park." The retired magus killer asked his son[,] who nodded his head vertically

"Positive, old man, I was the one who asked you to teach me of course so I want to see this through to the end."

Shirou then pointed to the pile of metal armor in front of him. "Besides we still don't know anything about this to make any wild guesses. After-all, who knows what it can do"

As if on cue, the left hand plate that the younger Emiya was pointing at suddenly disappeared in sparkles of light and reappeared on his arm that was currently in a pointing gesture.

This surprised the father and son duo before the red head removed the armored glove that reappeared on his hand and said, "case and point, old man."

This, of course, caused the eldest Emiya to sweat drop as his son unintentionally made a bad pun but disregarded it as his son was right in saying that the mystic code had unknown features that they still didn't know about, which could prove beneficial if they managed to figure the code out.

For the rest of the week, the two of them continued with Shirou's magecraft training while studying the suit of armor that they chose to store in the tool shed. Having a assortment of medieval armor on display in a Japanese style house would make a pretty odd sight especially if Fujimura Taiga managed to see it during her visits.

Speaking of the Tiger, while Shirou was not training with his dad in mage craft the 6 year old asked the 13 year old yakuza princess if she could train the boy in kendo since his old man wasn't that good of a swordsman and he needed training from someone of at least adequate skill if he was to become stronger.

At first Fuji-nee was reluctant to do this since it had only been a month since the boy survived the fire and didn't want to accidentally cause unexpected consequences during her training. However, after seeing Shirou's determination to learn, the brown haired girl enthusiastically agreed on the condition that he make her meals whenever they finish training.

The reason for this is because, due to various circumstances, the red head was surprisingly a good cook. The 6 year old decided to try it out after both his father and Fuji-nee proved that they had absolutely zero talent in cooking, plus it was either lean how to cook or have take-out every day.

With that agreement settled, a routine had formed in the Emiya household, which involved Fuji-nee training Shirou in kendo every morning, afternoon, or dinnertime depending on what time Raiga lets his granddaughter out of the house, followed by Kiritsugu's mage-craft training in the evening.

Of course, the kendo training involved the red head being hit by Taiga relentlessly while he tried in vain to break through the brown haired girl's defense and land a hit followed by the girl laughing over laughing over her victory while demanding breakfast, lunch, or dinner depending on the time of day they were training. Shirou predictably wasn't about to let her victory streak go on forever and vowed to defeat her some day.

When his kendo training wasn't happening, the red head was practicing the next part of his training in thaumaturgy, which covered structural analysis, a technique used by magi to understand the inner workings of an object or person and is an important step in mastering the rest of the basics.

Shirou had been practicing using this technique by reading nearly anything and everything he could find around the house. During this time, he found that he could analyze sharp and pointy things like knives and pikes easier than other things.

However, his father told the boy that structural analysis was a useless art to normal magi, since they would often abandon the spell for more complex and powerful abilities as a way to show off their skills. Of course, Shirou wasn't about to abandon a skill like that just because it was the basics of the basics and trained in using it to the best of his ability.

After a week of training, the red head was getting used to using structural analysis. Kiritsugu decided it was time to start the next part of his training, which involved using Projection.

However, something happened on that day that Shirou would remember for the rest of his life, and set him along a path that was beyond his wildest dreams.

"Okay Shirou, today we will be going to start with you learning the next part of your mage craft training since you seem to be doing so well in using structural analysis I taught you last week." Kiritsugu said, addressing his son within the confines of the tool shed.

After some careful examination of the entire Emiya household, it was determined that the tool shed in the yard was the perfect place for a magus workshop, since its hard stone floor and structure would allow prana to stay put. In contrast, if they set up shop in one of the rooms where the energy produced would pass through the wooden floors and paper doors.

"The reason that we are doing it after just one week is because of the progress you made with that technique I showed you to do last week. "Kiritsugu then looked towards the miniature set of armor sitting in the corner. "Plus you've showed real progress in learning how to use that armor"

What Kiritsugu was talking about was the activity the son and father do during the end of every lesson where Shirou goes with his father to the tool shed where the bronze armor is kept and learn how to use it. So far, the red head had learned he could summon each piece of the armor to his body by thought. After some careful structural analysis, he found out several things about the armor that surprised both Shirou and his father.

First, it seemed that the armor was semi-sentient according to the analysis Shirou performed but unfortunately they had no solid proof of this other than the fact that the bronze medieval suit of armor seems to respond to the red head's will. They also found that it has a sort of protective membrane around it that protects its wearer from external interference, giving the armor a very high magic resistance.

Finally, Shirou found out that he could summon the armor to his body at will by hitting the circular button located on the left shoulder plate and de-summon the medieval suit of protection by hitting it again, which would definitely prove beneficial in the future.

"Thanks, dad, but I couldn't have done it without your teachings, even though you suck at it." The youngest Emiya said without a shred of remorse, which caused Kiritsugu to sweat drop due to the fact that it was true, when he wasn't teaching Magecraft to others.

Yes it was true, the infamous magus killer capable of killing his targets with a 100% success rate per mission and was an expert in modern weaponry couldn't even cook or teach someone else how to make meals themselves as per the case of Taiga Fujimura, which in turn caused the red head to cook via self taught techniques honed from hours of successes and failures.

In fact, it was Kiritsugu Emiya who taught his wife Irisviel von Einzbern how to drive. Luckily, the retired assassin seemed to have wizened up to his inability to teach and made extra special care to make sure that he explained the basics of Thaumaturgy to his son in careful detail.

After all, if he didn't then that could lead to Shirou getting the wrong idea of how circuits work and, instead, turn his own nerves into makeshift circuits every time he needs to use mage craft.

"That's nice to hear, Shirou, but you don't have to rub it in every time. Its not my fault I was born with a twin origin of severing and binding." The eldest Emiya got out while making excuses.

Deciding to cut his old man some slack, Shirou decided to not push the subject anymore. However, there was something that he had noticed that seemed peculiar to him "Dad, when you said that you had twin origins what did you mean by that?"

Realizing that he had let something like that slip, Kiritsugu decided he might as well explain it to his son after thinking it over." Well, I wasn't going to tell you about origins until you advanced in your training a bit more but since it's been mentioned now it wouldn't hurt to talk about it a little."

The eldest Emiya then began his lecture with Shirou listening in carefully. "A person's origin is a sort of trait that defines a magus's personality and abilities, they are like goals engraved into the soul of a magus that guides their actions subconsciously and effects their thaumaturgy in many ways."

"However, origins can cause abnormalities in a person's body and mentality if they happen to be awaked. For example, a person with the origin of consumption would develop increased strength and speed, the mentality of a carnivorous predator, and even a case of cannibalism." The retired magus killer stopped to let this info sink in as he saw his son turn a shade of green at hearing about humans eating other humans as a result of awakened origins.

"Are there any questions you want to ask?" Upon seeing the red-head's face, Kiritsugu asked, before deciding to get back with explaining projection to Shirou after seeing that the red head didn't want to know more about origins for now.

"Okay then, I think that it's a good as time as any to explain the concept of projection mage craft to you." The magus killer explained before waiting for his son to give him his full attention so he could continue with the lesson.

"Projection or Gradation air as it is properly called is the art of using your prana to create solid copies of other objects such as cups, knives and other things as long as your imagination isn't limited." Kiritsugu explained before Shirou interrupted at hearing the specifics of Projection.

"Wait a second, are you saying you can create anything you want with just prana?" The red head asked before his father shook his head and decided to explain further.

"Not exactly, Shirou, you see objects made by projection only last a few minutes due to GAIA erasing their existence as well as the fact that they are very fragile due to the fact that projection only copies the objects shape making them hollow in the process. There is a reason that magi consider projection useless since it is an incomplete art that is only good for practicing how to manipulate prana and create disposable reagents for rituals"

"It is for that reason that many magi abandon this and skip to doing reinforcement since it is more beneficial to reinforce something already there then project something that only has a fraction of the original's power, which is why I'd advise you to skip gradation air once you practiced enough and go straight to reinforcement."

Upon hearing this, Shirou went into deep thought about what his father said about Gradation air. If what Kiritsugu said was true then and copy made by projection wouldn't last very long due to the fact that the object in question was incomplete and empty.

But, what if there was a way to fill them up so that they weren't hollow. After all, an object such as a vase or box is comprised of different materials that make up its shape, and then there was the method of manufacturing the object that needed to be taken into account.

Suddenly, the adopted son of Kiritsugu had an idea as he addressed his father."Hey, dad, you said that copies made by projection only last a little while due to the fact that only the shape of the original was copied, right?"

Wondering what his son was getting at, the eldest magus nodded his head from his knowledge of projection before the 6 year old continued

"Do you think it's possible to make a copy last longer if you take into account the composition of an object as well as the method of how it was made instead of just the shape?"

Blinking at his son's proposal the magus killer thought about what Shirou had proposed about projection magic. While Kiritsugu wasn't a traditional magus who was a researcher, he did see the benefits of thaumaturgy in regards to its practical uses in combat.

When the red head gave his idea about adding composition and method of making to gradation air, it gave the retired assassin some ideas. "Well, I guess in theory it's possible since structural analysis plays a vital role in analyzing an objects shape. It's possible for a magus to scan an object's composition and the method to make it as well in order to improve the projected copy's durability and allow it to last longer"

The magus killer then thought about something. "If you want, you can experiment with this new form of projection as a side project, since doing so would improve both your structural analysis and gradation air skills as a side bonus."

It was something to think about for the red head. If he managed to master this new variant of projection, he would be able make near perfect copies that are near identical to the real thing, but that was far away at the moment as he needed to get used to using projection magic first.

"So can I get started on projecting something, dad?" Shirou asked his father who was deep in thought from thinking off the practical uses of gradation air should they add the variants that his son mentioned.

When he noticed his son sitting there looking at him, the Elder Emiya coughed in embarrassment.

"Oh, yes, you can go ahead Shirou."He said as he explained how to project an object and the method for manipulating your prana to achieve this. With that done, he watched as the red head pick a metal pipe up, analyzed it with structural analysis and put it back on the floor where he found it.

"Trace on" Shirou recited as he activated the aria that he picked to hypnotize himself and become a conduit for magecraft and open his magic circuits. He visualized the metal pipe in his mind's eye. The red head paused as he began adding the info he gathered from the original by going through five steps that he and Kiritsugu thought up.

"Judging the concept of creation, hypothesizing the basic structure, duplicating the composition material, Imitating the skill of its making, Excelling every manufacturing process," eventually, a grey metal pipe appeared in the red head's hand in a flash of golden light. As Shirou held the pipe to his head in order to get a closer look, he found that the outside was identical to the original as he grabbed the original and compared the two.

However, when he used structural analysis to check the inside of the projected pipe he was met with disappointment.

"I take it things didn't turn out so well. "His father said reading the expression on his son's face.

Hearing this, Shirou nodded his head in agreement and handed the pipe to his father. "I managed to copy the materials and how it was made into the structure, but for some reason the projection still feels empty and hollow to me and I have no idea why"

Receiving the projected pipe from his son, the magus killer decided to have a look himself to see what Shirou was talking about. A closer inspection revealed that the pipe was not only identical to the real thing but Kiritsugu found by scanning it that the pipe not only had the composition of the original down but how it was manufactured was also taken into account.

Quite frankly, he was amazed at what his son had achieved since the projected object was eroding at a much slower rate than normal projections and would probably last at least a few hours from a day if the rate of corrosion was anything to go by.

That was why he was puzzled as to why his son thought it was still a failure, despite the fact that it was a near perfect use of gradation air[,] but if his son thought it was incomplete then he had no right to say otherwise since he wasn't an expert in gradation air himself.

"Well, to tell you the truth, Shirou, I don't think I can help you with this since projection isn't one of my strong points so the only thing I can advise is for you to keep practicing until you think you've done it right." It was the only piece of advise he could offer at the moment since he wasn't a Faker a magus who specializes in projection mage craft.

The 6 year old , upon hearing this , decided that the best way right now was to try again and review the steps, so that he could find out what he was missing in the equation and looked around the shed for something to project until he was face to face with his brass armor.

As he stared at the medieval suit, he suddenly had a vision of a grown up sized version of the armor wielding a strange key shaped sword with a stone shaped pendant for a keychain. The vision seemed to last for eternity until Kiritsugu placed a hand on his sons shoulder.

"Are you alright?" He asked, which snapped the red head back to reality

"Yeah, I'm alright, old man, I just dazed off for a second"

Telling his father that he was all right, Shirou tried to process what he just saw and realized that the key sword the life-sized armor was wielding was still clear in his mind, deciding that he might as well go for it as the red head thought about projecting the weapon that he saw in his vision.

With that in mind, he concentrated on the sword, making sure that he had a clear image of it in his head and recited his activation aria "Trace on"

What came next was totally unexpected for both Shirou and his father, strange holographic lights appeared around the red head's hand only for the lights to vanish revealing a speechless 6 year old holding the same weapon he saw in his vision.

The shaft of the blade had a textured, dark brown color, with brass edges. The teeth at the tip of the blade were made of two pick-like points, including two hammer-like protrusions on the opposite side. The guard had an off-blue color, and seemed to have been crafted from two Omega insignias (Ω). The pommel was a dark blue cone, with the Keychain token at the bottom of the blue handle a reddish rock fragment with brass armor-like plating that batched the brass coloring of the armor that Shirou had.

As the two of them stared at the strange sword that appeared in the red head's hand, Kiritsugu decided to break the silence "Shirou…what is that?"

Upon hearing his father's question, the survivor of the Fuyuki city fire merely stared at the weapon in his hands in fascination. "To be honest, I'm not quite sure myself. This suddenly appeared in my head when I looked at the armor in the corner so I decided to see if I could project it. Although judging by the fact that its not corroding at all, I don't think it's a projection"

This had set some alarms in Kiritsugu's head. His son told him that the weapon in his hand wasn't made by gradation air, since GAIA wasn't trying to erase it, but if that was the case then what was his son holding.

"Son, can you give that to me for a second? I want to take a look at it for a moment."The magus killer addressed his son, wanting to take a closer look at the brass weapon in Shirou's hand. However, when the red head handed it over to Kiritsugu so he could examine it, the weapon suddenly disappeared out of his hands and reappeared in Shirou's hand.

"What?" Shirou got out as he witnessed the key shaped weapon disappeared from his father's hands and reappeared in his hand. This had surprised the former master of the grail war as well as he never expected that to happen but it did reveal something to him.

First was that the blade could only be wielded by his son, as proven when it disappeared when he tried to hold it meaning that it had a degree of sentience which made since as there were plenty of examples of sentient blades who choose who wield them such as Caliburn: the sword in the stone that choose king Arthur to rule ancient Britain, and Gram: the sword in the tree featured in Norse legends.

Suddenly, the magus killer remembered something he had heard about during his days as a mercenary hunting dead apostles and sealing designates, it was something he had read in some research journals he had 'acquired' from one of his targets.

It appeared that the rogue magus in question had been researching about a strange weapon that had appeared in various historical records and legends all over the world and the mage had written an incredibly detailed report about these accounts. Normally, the magus killer wouldn't have bothered to read about something like that but since it was a magus research in trying to reach the root of all things it was work a small look.

From what the assassin could gather the weapon had surfaced in the hands of several people throughout the ages such as ancient China, Greece, Scandinavia, Ireland, and even Britannia during the 6th century when the Roman Empire was beginning to collapse.

The reports had even went into detail about the weapon's abilities such as the fact that it could open any lock without fail, as well as place locks itself, could even effect spiritual entities such as elementals, and even what it was called.

Eventually, the Association's enforcers had confiscated the report after the magus killer finished reading it as well as collected the rogue magus body, this meant that the Clocktower knew about what that mage was looking for and had a high interest in the weapon if they were willing to place a sealing designation on the mage if it meant acquiring his research.

Which was why Kiritsugu grew serious as he asked his son something "Shirou, do you know what that is?"

To which, his son replied. "I'm not sure, let me scan it so I can figure out what it is and how it works"

Kiritsugu then left the red head to activate his circuits and concentrate on the blade he was holding.

However, the task proved difficult as lots of different information appeared in Shirou's head, making his head hurt in the process. Eventually, he managed to find out something about the sword and cut the connection by closing his circuits.

"Well, did you manage to find out something?" the magus killer asked while hoping that he was wrong as to the true identity of the sword in his son's hand.

Eventually, Shirou closed his eyes to process the info he had just found out and opened them when he was ready to give an answer "I wasn't able to find much dad, but I did manage to find out its name"

He then held up the blade with his hand and said. "From what I could gather, this weapon is called Earthshaker, and it's a keyblade"

"A….keyblade?" the magus killer repeated as he came to realize that the sword his son was holding was the same weapon that the magus killer had read out from long ago and had been considered as a high priority research object sought out by the magus association.

"Emm, dad, is something wrong? You're making a really scary face" Shirou asked nervously as Kiritsugu had reverted to his magus killer persona giving him an emotionless face which scared his son a bit.

Seeing the 6 year old's frightened face, the elder Emiya sighed and apologized "Sorry about that, son. Its just that I recognized what you are holding"

Hearing this, the newly crowned keyblade wielder asked, "Really? Do you know what a keyblade is dad?"

"Only a few rumors here and there that I happened to hear during my younger years, one of the magi that I was 'acquainted' with had built up a sizable research journal on these mysterious blades."

"It was said that not only was a keyblade a very powerful weapon when used as a sword, but it also had the power to open any lock its user wanted whether it was mundane or magical. " As the magus killer stopped with his explanation to catch his breath, Shirou had a question that needed answering.

"But, why did this appear in my hand? I mean I was trying to use projection which makes inferior copies so why did I get the original?" The red head asked as he held the brass colored blade with both hands since it was pretty heavy.

"Because keyblades choose their wielders Shirou, and for better or worse it had choose you as its master." Kiritsugu answered, making sure that the weight of what he said was firmly etched into his sons head so that the red head fully understood the significance of what he was holding.

That seemed to have made an effect as stared at the keyblade for a minute or two before looking at his father, "Old man, what do you think I should do with it?

"I'm not sure, the keyblade has the power to bring disaster or salvation depending on who uses it so I want you to promise me that you will not abuse its power and do what you think is right, can you do that for me?" His father asked with a serious expression on his face as he waited for his son's reply.

After thinking about it for a bit, Shirou answered, "Okay old man, I promise"

Hearing this, the eldest Emiya let out a sigh of relief and thanked his son for understanding before noting that it was getting late and was already past Shirou's bed time.

So with that the father and son duo left the Earthshaker keyblade in the shed with the brass armor and locked the shed door before heading back to the house for a good nights sleep.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(Somewhere in the dark alleyways of Fuyuki City)

It was a dark moonlight night in the city of Fuyuki as many different people went about their businesses whether it was work, fun, or more unsavory purposes, considering that the alleyways of a large city were the perfect place for certain elements to hide out in the dead of night.

One such element would soon be revealed as a pair of stereotypical Yakuza flunkies, going through an alleyway in order to take a short cut after a night out drinking.

However, unlike most Yakuza flunkies that pervade Japan, these two were members of the Fujimura family meaning that they were more neighborhoods friendly then normal Yakuza since they mostly follow the law and even help out the police from time to time.

It was for this very reason that Kiritsugu established a very beneficial relationship with them during the fourth war, since it was them that managed to smuggle the weaponry the magus killer needed for the war due to Japan's strict laws on gun control, plus they were easy to get along with compared with traditional magi.

However, that wasn't important right now as the two Fujimura flunkies were about to have an encounter with something that could very well end their lives if they weren't careful.

"Yo, Daisuke yu have any idea whut that is?"The drunk one gurgled out to his collegue, as they stared at moving blob of black mass that was appearing from the shadows.

His sober partner holding him was currently staring at the black mass in fright as it seemed to form into a vaguely humanoid shape with bent tube like ears, webbish hands and bright yellow eyes with no ovaries, another characteristic of this otherworldly creature was that it looked like it was melting as black blobs fell of its body and hit the floor only for it to dissolve in black gas.

As the dark monster moved towards the scared thugs, making black footprints in its wake more creatures just like it started to appear only for them to cringe in pain as they started to melt at a faster [pace than] the first creature.

Eventually, the dark creatures dissolved into dark puddles that melted into the darkness, it was from that point that the Fujimura Yakuza made a break for it in the opposite direction convincing each over that what they saw tonight was merely hallucinations created from access drinking.

However, this event was merely one of a series of incidents that would happen over the years involving the creatures made of pure darkness known as the Heartless.

**Hello viewers, Epicgamer484 here, and thank you for reading the first chapter of mu new fic, Sword of Earth, which is a fate stay night and Kingdom hearts crossover, as well as the spiritual successor of my previous crossover story Fate/keyblade of wind.**

**The reason I did this instead of another chapter of circuit network is due to two reasons, the first is because this story was swimming in my head for a while now so I wanted to try it out, the second is because my previous stories have no BETA.**

**Fortunately I was able to find a BETA on short notice and was busy making corrections that he pointed out, however while he is knowledgeable about the fate series he unfortunately doesn't have knowledge of the kingdom hearts verse, so if anyone has any tips on how Nasuverse mechanics would work when Kingdom hearts is incorporated please PM me or leave you're comments in the review section.**

**Well that's all I have to say for now so see you later and please review. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters associate with this fic, they are the property of Type-moon, Square-Enix and Disney interactive, **

**Please support the original releases and look out for Kingdom hearts 3 and Kingdom hearts 2.5 HD **


	2. Chapter 2

Sword of Earth chapter 2

The following months after Shirou managed to unlock the power of the keyblade seemed to fly by, as the eternal struggle called life continued for the father and son duo.

First of these events was that Kiritsugu decided it was time for his son to go back to school, so that he could meet more kids his age and hopefully have a sense of normalcy in his life. After the magus killer finished all the necessary paperwork, Shirou was enrolled in the 1st grade at the nearest elementary school they could find.

Of course, the faculty offered to provide Shirou with special needs, when it came to their attention that the red head was a survivor of the great Fuyuki Fire and properly had lingering traumas that would affect his schoolwork, however both Father and son agreed that they didn't need special treatment, so Kiritsugu told the faculty that his son didn't need anything like that.

As far as fitting in, Shirou had a bit of difficulty fitting in at first due to his red hair causing a few raised eyebrows here and there.

However, this had changed somewhat after an event when he stood up to a trio of bullies that were attending the school and demanded that they leave a kid that they were coercing into handing over lunch money.

Of course, this left the red head bruised and beaten in the aftermath since he was up against multiple opponents and was forbidden from using his magecraft in public.

Since then, the red head decided that he needed to train his eyes and reaction skills, so that he could keep track of multiple opponents at once and trained vigorously with Fuji-nee.

However, Shirou never got to show the results of his training as Taiga Fujimura had heard of his little incident with the bullies at his school and decided that a little disciplining was in order.

The end result was the three stooges showing up at his front door in Japanese sitting positions with their heads bowed down and apologizing profusely for beating up the little brother figure of the Tiger of Fuyuki.

They then swore never to bully anyone at their school again before running away as fast as their legs could carry them.

When the youngest Emiya asked Fuji-nee what she did to them the brown haired girl sported a cat like grin and said, "it's a secret".

From there, school life seemed to be going all right for the Faker as he managed to keep his grades slightly above average due to him concentrating most of his spare time on magecraft as well as training with Fuji-nee.

His physical education on the other hand was great due to all of the physical exercise he does back home.

As for his activities back home, his training in Magecraft with Kiritsugu covered a number of topics such as reinforcement, alteration, bounded fields, and memory alteration.

Reinforcement was a technique that involved taking something that was already complete in the eyes of the word and improving it. It was considered as the foundation of all magecraft by pouring prana into an object in order to improve it.

This could range from filling in the impurities of an object to make it tougher and more durable, to improving an items concept like the sharpness of a knife or the nourishment of food.

Sometimes, reinforcement can also be used to change the physical structure of an object like turning a branch of a tree into a longbow, or repair the gabs in a football.

After Kiritsugu explained the concept of reinforcement to his son and showed him a demonstration, he went to collect a bunch of glass cups that he had bought from the local department store and placed them in front of Shirou so he could practice with them.

With that in mind, Shirou begun his first crack at reinforcement by picking up a random glass cup and examined it with structural analysis. After identifying the impurities in the cup, the trainee mage then put the glass down and placed his hand on it so he can begin with reinforcement.

"Trace on," he said. The circuits in his body flared to life giving him the prana necessary to fill in the gaps of an object and begun transferring the energy he created into the glass cup while making sure that he was filling in the gaps with his prana and nothing else.

Unfortunately, this ended in the glass cup cracking and finally breaking apart before the red heads eyes, marking the faker's first failure in performing Reinforcement.

However, the attempt wasn't a complete loss as Shirou figured out what he was doing wrong before the object cracked as it seemed he channeled a bit too much prana into the objects impurities causing them to expand and cause cracks in the glass that eventually cause it to shatter.

With that in mind, the red head picked up another cup and tried again now knowing what he had done wrong. However, it was more difficult then he thought as it was hard to find the right amount of prana to improve the glasses while making sure that they didn't break.

Eventually, Shirou managed to find the right balance of prana flow after breaking at least a third of the cups and begun reinforcing the rest while making sure that that they didn't break. When Kiritsugu came back a few hours later to check on his son's progress he was pleased to find that Shirou had managed to successfully reinforce the structures of over half of the remaining glasses without breaking them.

When the red head asked what they were going to do next his father said they were going to keep doing the same exercise over and over until Shirou can successfully reinforce every one of the set of glasses the magus killer sets up.

By this practice, the son of Kiritsugu would be able to guess correctly the right amount of prana needed to reinforce an object as if it was his second nature. This skill was necessary to master reinforcement, especially if the red head tries to reinforce his own body.

Eventually, Shirou managed to reinforce every one of the glasses his father set up for him without breaking a single one after two weeks of practicing non-stop.

With that out of the way, the father and son duo decided to practice reinforcing concepts next.

Since they didn't have a more physical presence within an object compared to imperfections it was harder for a novice magus to identify let alone reinforce them so that the object becomes better instead of inferior.

However, thanks to the previous training he did in controlling the flow of his prana, Shirou should be able to successfully reinforce an objects concept as long as he didn't screw up.

Fortunately for the boy, that didn't seem to be the case as when Shirou decided to reinforce the sharpness of the knives in his kitchen he was successful for the most part.

Of course, the rest of the bits and pieces he could get his hands on such as metal pots and pans and various junk that Fuji-nee leaves behind when she visits weren't exactly successes themselves as over half of his attempts ended up either deformed or in pieces.

However, if there was one characteristic that defined Shirou Emiya it was that he had a stubborn streak, which was why he kept challenging Taiga to sparring matches despite the losing streak he had at the moment.

With that in mind, the faker kept up with trying to perfect conceptual reinforcement until he got it right, to improving the sharpness of a knife, to the nutritional value of the ingredients he keeps in his kitchen.

A funny incident happened one time, as Shirou accidentally used the reinforced food he kept in the backside of the cupboard and fridge for breakfast one time, when he forgot to go shopping that weekend, so he ended up using them for breakfast that morning, by the time he had realized his mistake and choose not to eat the food, Taiga had already eaten her share and was already asking for seconds.

Because of the ingredients he used in making breakfast were twice as nutritious and full of energy as normal food, they ended up making anyone who ate them energetic and full of life.

This unfortunately included Fuji-nee who was already hyperactive and full of energy already become an absolute monster in terms of endurance, when Breakfast was finished they had accidentally unleashed onto the world an extremely energetic teen onto the world.

With too much energy in her 13 year old body the yakuza princess ended up in multiple scenarios that left her grandfather Raiga with multiple headaches and Kiritsugu making Shirou swear never to reinforce anything edible in the house again especially if Taiga comes round.

It was after this event that the red head finally mastered conceptual reinforcement after he was limited to non-edible object due to Taiga's actions. Seeing his son's progress, Kiritsugu decided that it was time to start doing Alteration.

While Reinforcement reinforces an object's structure and concepts that make it whole and Projection replicates its image, Alteration is considered the mid-way point between the two as it involves giving the object an effect or property it didn't have before.

However, there was a couple of limits to this mystery that prevent it from truly being effective. First was the fact that the concept added needed to be compatible with the object in question or it would collapse from its own unstable nature.

The second limit was that certain concepts added are only temporary if they were something like adding the concept of fire to a knife to set it alight. However, this limit is meaningless to magi as there are plenty of other mysteries that do the same thing.

Seeing the possibilities of such an art, Shirou looked on as Kiritsugu gave a demonstration of such an art by grabbing a bucket of water, putting his hand into the cold liquid and performed Alteration. This resulted in adding the concept of flammability to the clear liquid. He dunked his hand into the bucket, lighting a matchstick, and dropping it into the altered water before backing away from the resulting flames that appeared.

The magus killer explained that this was possible due to the components that made up H2O such as hydrogen and oxygen, which were both flammable substances on their own.

It was the main reason why many fire extinguishers never had any water in them, as the water would just maintain the flames depending on the intensity.

After the demonstration and explanation on how to perform alteration, the older Emiya gave the red head permission to perform his own experiments on using the art as long as they were reasonable.

With that conformation Shirou decided that he wanted to try with something simple and grabbed a metal pipe from the corner of the tool shed. Racking his brain on what he wanted to do, the red head eventually decided on giving the metal pipe the concept of softness.

With that decided he recited his activation aria and activated his circuits so he could use structural analysis to identify the concepts in the metal pipe, then used Alteration to add softness to its conceptual structure.

The end result of Shirou's experiment was a metal pipe that had the softness and elastic properties of rubber, which amused his father when he saw it; eventually the metal pipe went back to normal as his father explained that that level of alteration was only temporary.

A couple of weeks after that the magus killer decided that it was time his son learned about bounded fields, since it would be beneficial for Shirou to learn about them in his youth.

Bounded fields as Kiritsugu explained were long-term mysteries set up by magi in order to serve specific purposes ranging from protecting a magus's home or workshop, keeping mundane away from a specific location related to the supernatural and many others.

The magus killer explained that in order to create a bounded field you need to be at the location in which you want your field to be, generate high concentrations of prana from either your circuits or from a nearby source like a leyline, and then spread it over a large area that covers the area you want it to be at.

Some bounded fields are able to cover literal areas of space such as in the air, or have a barrier set up to keep intruders away from a specific location. However, these were beyond Kiritsugu's ability to teach so he apologized to his son and explained that they have to stick to the basics for now.

An example the magus killer gave his son was the bounded field he had set up around the Emiya residence property when he had adopted the red head.

While it didn't possess any obvious effects like torching intruders or magically binding targets to a specific location, it can detect whether an intruder entering the property was hostile towards any of the people living there and alerts the residents via ringing a couple of bells linked to the field.

After this explanation Shirou asked his father if there was any other bounded fields that he could teach the red head how to do. Unfortunately, the only ones that the magus killer knew how to do were a weak field meant to keep mundane people away from a specific location, as well as the field around the Emiya residence mentioned earlier.

The magus killer did, however, say that he was going to instead teach his son tricks on how to get past bounded fields instead since he had learned quite a bit getting past them during his days as a freelancer.

From there, the elder mage explained to the younger one the different types of bounded fields often employed by mage families. The key points around the field where they are weakest and how to identify them.

This continued on for at least an hour, before the magus killer decided that they had covered enough on the finer points of bounded fields and called off the lesson for the day, saying that they were going to cover memory alteration next.

Just like the name implies, it was a mystery meant to alter the mind of a target in order to erase a person's memories, as well as replace them with new ones at the casters leisure. The technique could also be used to view the memories of the target in clearer detail as long as the owner of said memories was willing.

Kiritsugu explained that it was important that Shirou learn this mystery, as magi use memory alteration in order to erase the memories of mundane people that might threaten the secrecy of magecraft. Of course, the magus killer further explained that most magi usually just kill any witnesses and dispose of the bodies in secret.

Not wanting to resort to such methods in order to preserve the secrecy of magic, Shirou agreed that he would do his upmost best to master memory alteration, so that he would be prepared in case an event happens that might expose magic to the world.

It was easier said than done. The red head had displayed difficulty in using this mystery, when his father tasked him with reading his mind. In fact, it had taken Shirou 5 whole days before he was able to gain a degree of control over memory alteration.

Then again, the target for Shirou's attempts in using that particular spell was Taiga, who to put it lightly isn't very bright to begin with, which creates doubts on Shirou's ability to use memory alteration if hit took the red head 3 weeks just to hypnotize Fuji-nee.

It another week just to master Command, which was a mystery that hypnotizes its target into doing whatever the caster wanted, as long as the order didn't conflict with the target's basic nature. The reason it took so long to master it was due to both Shirou's lack of talent in the field, and his reluctance to learn something that forces others to do stuff against their will.

Kiritsugu, of course, understood why his son didn't want to use this mystery, but convinced the red head to learn it anyway as it might prove useful in keeping mundane individuals out of harms way.

After a month of training Kiritsugu decided to evaluate his son's progress in order to determine what sort of magecraft he could do in the future. It was obviously clear that his son was no genius when it came to using thaumaturgy. However, what Shirou lacked in talent he made up for it in hard work and determination.

Time and time again he practiced what little his father taught him in the mystic arts until using them became second nature, but if the magus killer had to point down his son's strong points then he would have to narrow it down to Reinforcement, Projection, and Alteration, all three of which were the basics learned by magi.

Of course, the magus killer knew very well that the basics were very important for a mage as they served as the foundation for a mages skills, which were needed in order to learn harder and more complex mysteries later on in life.

The only thing left to do now is to figure out what Shirou's element is, so that the magus killer has a better understanding on his son's abilities and work their way up from there.

After the red head managed to gain a degree of control in using the memory altering mysteries he taught the boy. Kiritsugu said that he needed to leave on a trip in a few days, and instructed Shirou to practice everything that he had taught him, as well as the other projects that he was doing in his spare time, such as mastering the use of both his arnor and Keyblade, as well as trying to figure out the key point that was missing in Shirou's version of projection magic.

Eventually, Kiritsugu left the house a few days later saying that he might not be back for a month, with that in mind he instructed his son before he left to look after the house while he was gone and to not slouch in his studies both mundane and magical.

With his father gone the faker decided that he might as well start on his usual routine around the house, since it was not the first time Kiritsugu had left the house for some time as he had done it shortly after the man adopted him, leaving Fuji-nee to look after the red head until he came back a month later looking even more dejected then before.

Of course, Shirou was curious about what his father was up to overseas, but whenever he tried to get some answers from the retired magus he always got the same answer.

"It's nothing Shirou, so don't worry about it"

It was obvious that his father was hiding something since he was so defensive about where he goes during his trips. However, Shirou decided not to pry any further as it was none of his business, plus he wanted to wait until his father was comfortable with telling him himself.

With that in mind, the youngest Emiya of the two (redundant) walked towards the tool shed that serves as his workshop and stopped when he faced the chained up door with a lock attached.

Looking in all directions in order to make sure that Fuji-nee didn't make any surprise visits Shirou held out his hand and concentrated on his secret weapon, a second later the Earthshaker keyblade appeared in his hand.

During his spare time when he wasn't practicing kendo with Taiga, learning thaumaturgy from his father, or doing his homework, the red head decided to pass the time by practicing with the Keyblade in the courtyard at night.

During these experiments Shirou had learned two different abilities that he had discovered about his new weapon, first was that the red head can summon the sword to his hand anytime he wanted and dismiss it just as well, this would be helpful if he happened to be disarmed during the middle of a fight.

The second power was that the keyblade enhanced his physical abilities to superhuman levels in regards to his strength, endurance, and agility with a slight (slight and super human seems contradicting) increase in attack power. When Kiritsugu saw this, he compared it to a form of passive reinforcement, that didn't end as long as Shirou was still holding the weapon.

Since his power boost was coming from the keyblade, the faker could further enhance his abilities by applying reinforcement to his own body, after his father gave the boy the green light to try it out.

Needless to say, Emiya Shirou was a very happy boy that day.

Coming out of the flashback he just had, the red head raised the end point of his keyblade towards the lock binding the tool shed shut and tapped it twice causing a clicking sound that caused the lock to become undone.

This was a security feature that Shirou and his father thought up after reviewing the keyblade's main power to open any lock no matter how old or modern it was, by chaining the door to the tool shed up and throwing away the key to the lock, the two of them ensured that only someone with a keyblade would be able to open the door to Shirou's workshop.

So with that the red head dismissed the Earthshaker and picked up the chain that was discarded on the floor, before pushing the doors to the tool shed open and place the chain on a nearby table.

As Shirou looked around the stone and wood covered area that served as his workshop, he spotted the other tool in his arsenal that was sitting on a chair below the window covered in brass, gold and black metal plates.

Even after a year passed since the great Fuyuki fire, the faker still had no idea where that armor came from and how it ended up attached to the red head in the first place, even his father was puzzled as magi nowadays don't create full sets of armor as mystic codes since they stand out too much in public, which is why they use other mysteries in order to protect themselves.

However, there was one thing the red head was sure of. The keyblade he was using possessed a connection to the armor due to them sharing similar color themes, as well as the vision he had of the armor holding the weapon right before summoning the keyblade for the first time.

Of course, the red head wasn't about to just let it just sit there collecting dust as he had many plans in the future for it, such as dressing up in the armor in order to hide his identity while he combated evil wherever it may hide, just like the main lead in that kamen rider show which Fuji-nee often forces him to watch like normal kids his age.

Shirou put aside those thoughts of vigilantism and playing superhero as he had more important things to do, such as mastering his projection magic so the copies he makes don't end up empty and lifeless.

It had puzzled him for months as he couldn't seem to get it right no matter how hard he tried. He had got the shape down, as well as the composition, how it was made, and finished the final product to the best of his ability, but no matter how hard he tried the finished copy still didn't have nearly half of the originals substance.

There was something that he was missing, something the original possessed that separated it from all others just like it, but the red head had no idea what that was and it was driving him crazy.

"Damn it" Shirou shouted as he threw his latest failure on the floor in uncharacteristic anger. It was true that the red head wasn't the type to get upset over something like this as he had experienced failure many times before when training with his dad in Thaumaturgy.

However, his father was there to point out what he did wrong and went through the steps with Shirou so he could try again. But since the magus killer was on a trip at the moment the trainee faker was all on his own at the moment, plus the fact that the red head had absolutely no idea where Kiritsugu went and the built up stress was getting to the wielder of the keyblade.

It was then that Shirou realized that he was getting too emotional over this and decided that he needed to go outside, in order to take a deep breath and clear his head. However, when he got outside he was greeted with a familiar sight.

"Shirou" shouted the overly energetic 14-year-old Yakuza princess leapt towards the stunned 7 year old and wrapped her arms around his head. As the red head struggled to get his head free, he turned his eyes to the teen that was clearly more immature then he was even though the red head was half her age.

"Fuji-nee!?, What the hell are you doing here?" Shirou got out as he finally managed to wrestle himself free from Taiga's choke hold and addressed his older sister figure.

"Oh come on Shirou what kind of question is that silly? I'm here to make sure you're doing alright and eating properly since Kiritsugu is away on another trip again." Fujimura Taiga said out loud like it was the obvious thing in the world.

"Honestly, I still can't believe that your dad just left like that without even arranging for a proper caretaker to look after you while he was away. Fortunately, grandpa saw this coming and sent me here to check up on you every day so that you're doing alright." Shirou of course felt a bit nervous about this as there was a reason his father never formally asked Fuji-nee to look after him as she often caused more harm than good.

Of course, that only applies when she tries anything related to cooking as whenever the brown haired girl came round she insisted on wanting to use the kitchen to practice her cooking, as she was forbidden from using the one at her house for reason unknown to her.

These reasons for her ban from the Fujimura kitchen turned out to be reasonable to the 7 year old as Taiga somehow managed to set fire to the kitchen every time she tried to cook. However, despite her absolute inability to make edible meals, she was a great help in other areas, such as helping Shirou with physical training in order to polish his sword skills, and showed a genuine concern for the red heads well-being.

So as long as Fuji-nee was kept at least 10 meters away from the kitchen on threat of no home cooked meals for a week, she was great to have around the house.

Which was why Shirou quickly got over his nervousness and addressed his sister figure "okay, so what are you doing here Fuji-nee"

"Getting you away from that tool shed that's what. Honestly, you spent so much time in there that you didn't even realize that it's already 8:00pm in the evening and way past your bed time since you have school tomorrow." Taiga stated bluntly as Shirou checked the watch on his wrist to make sure that it was really that late.

Sure enough, the big handle was pointed at the number 12 symbol, while the smaller one was towards the number 8. With that he sheepishly rubbed the back of his head and laughed lightly, he had been so caught up in trying to perfect his version of projection that he didn't even realize the time.

"Sorry about that Fuji-nee, I'm just going to go lock up the shed go to my room after I'm done, but thanks for letting me know" the red head thanked the yakuza princess who in turn nodded her head in agreement.

"That's alright Shirou, just make sure that you don't stay up too long, speaking of which, do you want to spend the night over at my house since your dad is away. I'm sure grandpa would be glad to have you round for the night." The brown haired girl offered only for the red head to turn it down by shaking his head.

"Thanks for the offer Fuji-nee, but I think I'll be alright for tonight. Besides, it's not the first time the old man left me alone to watch the house. Well, I best get started on locking everything up for tonight, see you tomorrow Fuji-nee." As the red head left the disappointed girl to go back home, he went back inside the shed and grabbed the chain by the door in order to lock up his workshop.

With that done, he waved good bye to Taiga as she walked back towards her house before heading back inside in order to go to his room and go to bed. On his way, he passed through the kitchen and stopped in order to look at the cooking knives that he often took with him into the tool shed in order to project.

As he thought this, the faker's mind wandered a bit to his failed attempts at projection and went over everything that he had learned over the months that he gained from practicing the art after learning it from his father.

It was clear that he was very close to finding out the secret component missing from his method of projection, but for the life of him he had no idea what it was. It had to be something that went deeper than just the materials or manufacturing process.

Suddenly, he noticed the clock above the TV in the lounge and noticed that it was getting late, meaning that he had better get going or it would ruin the timetable he had made for himself every day.

As he stared at the clock seeing the handle that measures seconds slowly rotate clockwise, the gears in his head suddenly turned after thinking about the concept of time. It was at that point that he realized the difference between an ordinary kitchen knife, and one of his projections, as it was the same difference between a cooking knife used by a veteran chef and one fresh from the manufacturer.

While trying to make a perfect copy of the original, he had forgotten to include the original's age and experiences, realizing that he was on the right track Shirou grabbed one of the knives that he frequently uses for cooking and performed structural analysis on it.

His mind was then filled with info about the knife that he had seen countless times from scanning it. However, that wasn't what he wanted right now as he needed to go deeper into the very core of the object. The red head was not used to that level of structural analysis and so was cut off.

It was clear to the read head that it was possible to view an objects history based on the small amount of info he was able to glean from the kitchen knife. However, his skill in structural analysis wasn't good enough yet to get a full grasp of the targets history.

However, Shirou wasn't about to stop there as he had finally found a way to perfect his version of projection, so if that meant he needed to spend time developing his skill in structural analysis then so be it.

After all, the son of Kiritsugu couldn't wait to show his father the results of his training when he comes home.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(One month later)

It was a cold winter morning when Emiya Kiritsugu came home to the Emiya residence in Fuyuki city after being gone for a month, trying in vain to get pass the Einzbern bounded field in Germany so that he could see his daughter again, and warn the aristocratic family about the holy grails corruption.

However, no matter how hard he tried he just couldn't get past the field due to the curse he got from Angra Mainyu eating away at his circuits, as well as his other bodily functions. Based on the rate of corrosion in his body, the magus killer calculated that he had at least 4 years left before the curse eroded the last of his organs and end his life.

Which was why he was so desperate to get inside the Einzbern estate, so that he could see his daughter one last time before he died, but it seemed that old man Acht wouldn't even let him have that final mercy due to the fact that Kiritsugu destroyed the grail instead of winning the war like he promised.

With that, the cursed magus sighed in defeat and walked towards the front door of his house. He entered the hallway and made sure to take his shoes off at the entrance, before putting slippers on as it was considered bad manners to wear your shoes indoors in Japan.

"Shirou? Are you here?" the Eldest Emiya shouted out loud in order to see if his son was still in. When he didn't get a reply, the black haired man assumed that the red head was at school since it was 10:43 am in the morning. Thinking that to be the most likely explanation, Kiritsugu entered the lounge area of the house and noticed something in the kitchen area.

It was an assortment of Japanese food on a tray that was covered with transparent foil with a note written in Japanese next to it. Seeing this, the magus killer walked towards the kitchen area and read the note since the curse hasn't taken his eyesight yet.

Dear old man

If you're reading this message then you must be back from your trip and probably pretty hungry since airplane food isn't exactly world-class cuisine, that and I happen to know from first hand experience that you can't cook to save your life.

But just in case you are reading this then welcome back and hope you enjoy it. I wasn't sure of the time you were going to come home so I made some food before I left for school and covered it with reinforced foil so that the heat doesn't escape, but just in case it it's cold just put it in the microwave and heat them up.

see you later tonight Dad

Shirou Emiya

As the magus killer read the note one last time in order to make sure he read it right, he smiled at his son's consideration towards the 32 year old man, truth be told he hadn't eaten anything during the whole plane ride since the plane food tasted horrible.

With that in mind Kiritsugu removed the foil coverings from the tray and noticed that the food below him was still hot despite the fact that it had been more than a couple of hours since his son probably cooked it. It seemed that Shirou's skill in Reinforcement had improved since he was away.

Deciding that it was time to dig in, the magus killer picked up the pair of chopsticks by the tray, then proceeded to consume the breakfast that his son had prepared for. After finishing his meal, Kiritsugu then placed the dirty plates and bowls into the sink so that he could do a bit of washing up. After all, he would be a bad example of a father if he just left the dishes to his son.

It was then that he noticed something that had caught his eye near the sink, the two identical knives that were placed next to each over. Normally, this wouldn't have been such of an odd sight to the magus killer as he was in a kitchen however things were different.

For example, some knives often have faint scratches and stains engraved into the metal that set them apart from each over based on the different tasks they were used for. However, the odd thing to Kiritsugu was that the two knives were identical right to the smallest detail, scratches and all.

Quickly deducing that his son must have practiced his projection Thaumaturgy in the kitchen and left them there the Eldest Emiya decided to examine them in order to measure his son's progress in using Gradation air.

What he found however was beyond shocking as the magus killer managed to find out through his use of structural analysis that the projected knife he was holding was a near perfect copy of the original that it was impossible to tell the difference between the two without some sort of mystery designed to find this out.

Even more was the fact that the projected kitchen-ware was such a perfect copy that the corrosion effect from GAIA was practically non-existent, meaning that it would take weeks and even months for it to fully disappear.

Kiritsugu wasn't a normal magus, but even he could tell that something like this meant that whatever method Shirou used to project this knife, he had managed to create something that surpassed normal thaumaturgy and was borderline sorcery since it resembled the Denial of Nothingness so much.

And that was without even mentioning the fact that Shirou had been learning magecraft at an astonishing rate, especially considering the fact that he was only in elementary school, at first kiritsugu brushed the fact of as Shirou remembering things that were taught to him by his birth family.

But this was something that most adults he knew wouldn't be able to do on their own and with so little time, after all thaumaturgy by its nature is a dangerous art that is focused on belief, this means that it takes years to master, as you need to hypnotize yourself into believing that what you are doing is possible.

But for some reason or another his adopted son had been able to grasp the concept of magecraft far quicker then other people his age, the only conclusion that Kiritsugu could come up with for this was that Shirou had an integrated knowledge of thaumaturgy in his head, similar to what was done to his daughter Illya, since she was altered to have instinctual knowledge of alchemy while she was in her mothers womb.

This meant that Kiritsugu needed to have a talk with his son after he came back from school.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(A few hours later)

"I'm home" Shirou shouted as he opened the front door to his house and took his shoes of at the entrance so he could get inside without dirtying the floor. He knew that his father was coming home today which is why he cooked some extra food for Kiritsugu so that he had something to eat when he came home, plus he wanted to surprise his father at finally managing to perfect his version of projection.

"You here old man?" When he didn't get a reply, he assumed that Kiritsugu was in another part of the estate and couldn't hear him, but imagine his surprised when he found his father sitting by the table drinking green tea.

"Welcome back son, I hope something didn't happen while I was away."

Upon hearing this, the red head shook his head and replied back (redundant). "Not really, although Fuji-nee kind of felt lonely since you weren't here but we managed alright"

"That's good to hear." The magus killer said before finishing his beverage and looked at his son with stern eyes. "Shirou, there's something we need to talk about"

"What is it old man?" Shirou asked, seeing that his father was serious, before deciding to sit down as well. He had a feeling that this would take a while. Soon enough, Kiritsugu put his hand into his back pocket and pulled out a pair of knives that were identical to each over.

As he put the pair on the table the magus killer addressed his son without looking away "Shirou, mind explaining what this is?"

As the red head took a closer look at the pair of kitchen-ware that his father put on the table, he immediately recognized them as a projected knife and its original that he had made this morning in order to make sure that his thaumaturgy was working properly.

However, it seemed that he forgot to put them away as his father found them when he came home from his trip, meaning that showing Kiritsugu his new skill was going to be sooner then he thought. With that, the faker sighed.

"Oh man, I wanted to surprise you about that my skill in Tracing later on, but guess I forgot to clean up after myself this morning." This caused Kiritsugu to nod as he could see his son wanting to show him his progress in using magecraft. However, there was something the red head said that caught his interest.

"Tracing? What's that?" Kiritsugu asked as he hadn't heard about something like that Seeing his father's confusion, Shirou decided to explain.

"Yeah, it's what I decided to call my new mystery since it operates differently than normal projection"

"Really? How so?" The magus killer asked, as he was curious about this new mystery his son managed to discover all on his own.

"Well, remember during our lessons on projection when I suggested incorporating Composition, and the manufacturing process to a projected object in order to make it sturdier and last longer, well when I tried it I decided to split the projection process into 5 steps."

"These included judging the concept of creation, hypothesizing the basic structure, duplicating the composition material, Imitating the skill of its making, and excelling every manufacturing process." Kiritsugu understood this as his son explained his method of gradation air to him shortly after that lesson they had.

"However, when I tried it this way all the copies I made were empty and hollow. They had the shape and composition but for some reason they didn't have the same soul" the magus killer blinked at this analogy his son made but after thinking it over it made a degree of sense.

Japanese culture believed that even inanimate objects had souls in them just like living things do; In fact the Samurai believed that their souls resided in the weapons that they used in life.

"For months, I tried to find some way to make my copies as real as the originals and it wasn't until you left for your trip that I discovered what I had been missing. Tell me, dad, do you know the difference between an ordinary kitchen knife found at any convenience store, and one used by a veteran chef"

At first his father was confused about what Shirou was getting at but as soon as he realized the answer to the red heads question his eyes widened in shock. "Did you mean that you…?"

"Exactly, I found that when I was tracing a copy of the original object using gradation air. I didn't take into account the originals age or experiences, which is why my previous attempts were so hollow, since I remember you saying that a person's soul is mostly composed of their memories"

In fact, he did remember saying that as a matter of fact. It was something that he decided to tell Shirou about one morning since magic circuits reside in the soul and not the body.

"Of course, when I tried scanning an objects history using Structural analysis, I found that I couldn't read it since my skill in that mystery wasn't good enough yet, which was why I spent the past month training my skills in using it until I was eventually able to do it a couple of weeks ago."

"After gathering the necessary info on that knifes history, I then went through the steps needed to trace it, only this time I added the process of Sympathizing with the experience of its growth and Reproducing the accumulated years between steps 4 and 5. This extra effort grants me a copy that is twice as stable as one made through normal gradation air"

Shirou then took a deep breath and looked at his father. "Well, what do you think, old man?" only to blink as he realized that he was just sitting there staring at his son in shock.

Kiritsugu knew, of course, that what his son did wasn't normal gradation air, but this was something completely beyond his imaginings, as Shirou had absolutely no idea of what he had created.

First off, the red heads ability in using structural analysis was impressive for someone of his age in using thaumaturgy, even though modern magi considered it a useless art. Heck, even his son's ability to scan an object, while amazing, wasn't something to brag about at places like the Clock-tower.

Then, there was his ability in using Gradation air, another useless mystery cast aside by mages in favor of more reliable spells and incantations. The reason it was considered this was because projected copies only last a few minutes due to GAIA considering them imperfect and eroding them out of existence. Most magi who use it prefer to project things that are meant to be sacrifices in various rituals, and even then they would often have materials on hand to overlay the copy when it was….complete.

Suddenly, Kiritsugu felt like whacking himself over the head with one of his guns as he didn't even realize something about his son's use of projection that he didn't even realize until now.

When Shirou had made those projected objects all those months ago, he had managed to create them without having other materials with him on hand to overlay their existences and make them more stable and last longer. After all, magecraft was built around the principle of Equivalent Exchange, meaning that when a mage uses projection or any other mystery that manipulates a particular element all they were really doing was summoning materials from somewhere else and shaping them to their needs.

However, what Shirou used was different, since the materials that made up his copies didn't exist anywhere else prior to when he made them, but the big question was how he did it despite the principle.

Then, there was his Tracing, which he made by combining his improved Structural Analysis and Gradation Air. Magi panned the two mysteries as being useless as there were more effective mysteries they could learn, but when used by Shirou they made traced objects that possess the age and history of the original.

Kiritsugu thought about what the Mages Association would think about his son's new ability if it were to be found out. Needless, to say it wasn't a pretty image.

"Em dad? Are you okay?" Shirou nervously asked as the magus killer finally looked at his son and eventually sighed

"It's nothing, Shirou. I was just thinking about the significance of what you just explained to me, and to be honest with you I'm a little uneasy about where this will lead"

"What do you mean?" His son innocently asked.

"Listen son, what you just explained to me just now could make life very difficult for you in the future should this ever get out to the mages association."

"But all I'm doing is replicating the history of an object in order to improve my skills in using projection. Even if I was the first to do it, I'm sure that others will be able to do so given enough time and money." In a sense, what Shirou said was true. While being able to scan a targets history is unheard of in the clock tower, it could technically be used by anyone with the right Element or origin.

"Maybe so, son, but other people won't know that will they, Especially if this tracing ability in theory enable you to replicate Noble phantasms," this was the main reason for Kiritsugu's worry given what he knew about the mythical trump cards of heroic spirits such as the Sword of Promised Victory, Excalibur. He witnessed his former servant, Saber, used it twice in order to destroy caster's summoned monster, and near the end of the fourth war when he forced the king of knights to destroy the corrupted grail via 2 command seals.

Seeing the puzzled look on his sons face at the mention of Noble phantasms, Kiritsugu decided to enlighten him. "Sorry about that, I forgot that we haven't gotten that far in our lessons yet, well to start with Noble phantasms are often legendary artifacts used by legendary heroes from across history, or concepts related to the various deeds they performed in life."

"You mean like the Kusanagi no Tsurugi used by Yamato Takeru, or King Arthur's Excalibur?" The red head curiously asked as he had read about such things in school.

Nodding his head at his son's insight, the magus killer continued. "Correct, you see, because these heroes are revered and worshipped by the masses during and after they lived, these men and women transcended their mortal existences and became heroic spirits, removing them from the cycle of Reincarnation and causing them to enter the throne of heroes. Naturally, since the weapons they wielded in life were recorded in their legends, they had ascended as well into noble phantasms."

"Some of these mythical weapons and tools still exist in the modern era even today. For example, there exists the Fraga clan from Ireland that has a noble phantasm passed down from generation to generation since the age of the gods. Many have even lost their physical shape and exist as crystallized legends in physical form." As his father explained the concept of Noble phantasms, Shirou thought about something that he had discovered in his body shortly after he finished perfecting his new and improved structural analysis.

It was then that he decided to ask his father about this mysterious substance in his body. "Actually, dad, there's something that I needed to ask you about." Hearing this, the magus killer listened in and waited for what his son had to say.

"You see, when I tried analyzing myself in order to improve my ability to reinforce my bodym I noticed something some odd golden lights that had somehow merged with my internal organs. When I tried structural analysis on them, all I could get was the image of a gold and blue thing. You wouldn't happen to know anything about this, would you?"

From there, silence ensued as Kiritsugu had been expecting this for a while now due to his son's progress in using reinforcement, but he didn't think it would be this soon. Eventually, after a few minutes of the two of them not saying anything the former master of the Holy Grail war decided to speak after carefully going over what to say.

"What you saw was something that belonged to a very strong and noble woman, as well as the scabbard of a powerful and ancient sword." Hearing this, the red heads eyes lighted up but then went into a thinking position as he tried to point down what his father was talking about.

"Do you remember those Memory alteration lessons we had 2 months ago?" Seeing his son nod in agreement, the 32 year old man continued. "Well, there is a particular memory that I want to show you. However, instead of putting an image into my head, I want you to instead focus on the memory and view it like seeing a movie. Do you understand?"

Nodding his head in agreement, Shirou mentally went over what his father taught him about memory alteration, before saying his famous catch phrase that activated his circuits and placed his hand on Kiritsugu's forehead.

"Remember, concentrate on the image I want to show you. Don't focus on anything else." His father reminded Shirou before he began and was flooded with a sea of memories that left him a little disoriented.

Eventually, the magus killer managed to guide his son through the memory he wanted to show, and soon the red head was witnessing a scene that left him a little bit in awe.

The image was a little fuzzy at first, but thanks to Shirou's training in both structural analysis and reinforcement he was able to concentrate on a much clearer image that consisted of an old church like building with glass stained windows, stone covered walls, and snow hitting against the glass meaning that it was snowing outside wherever the red head was seeing.

Eventually, he managed to make out some other things in the church that had caught his eye. First was a couple of tables in the center with what looks like a laptop on one of them, eventually he spotted a person near the table that had caught his eye.

It was a woman in her mid to early twenties that had blood red eyes and snow white hair, now since the red head was only 7 at the time he didn't have much experience with women other than Fuji-nee. However, even he could tell that the woman he was seeing was beautiful. Also, out of all the things that the red head saw in his father's memory this woman was much clearer than any of them meaning that she was probably important to his dad in some way. Shirou decided to ask Kiritsugu about her later before focusing on what she was holding.

It was a Golden scabbard ordained with royal blue lines and engraved in the centre were letters that didn't look like any form of language the red head was familiar with. Just like the snow white beauty that was holding it, the scabbard was beautiful in its own way….no on second thought he had to retract that as calling it beautiful would be an insult to its true value.

As he continued to stare at the memory of the scabbard through the eyes of his father, various information started to flow into Shirou's mind due to his ability with structural analysis. As various bits of info flowed into his head, the faker managed to identify several key points. First was that it was of considerable value made to be used in battle by a king.

Was that it? He thought to himself before assuring himself that it was the case, he didn't know why but he was sure it was the truth.

A legendary scabbard that served as the sheaf of an equally famous sword and was made not by the hands of man but by fairies. As Shirou gazed at the scabbard, he was able to identify its age, composition, experience, and more importantly its name.

As the red head cut off the connection in order to rest both his circuits and his mind from what he just witnessed, he still had the info from the dive fresh in his mind and looked at his father in both amazement and shock

"Avalon," the faker said as he knew the true identity of the mysterious light that resided in his body, finding this out was understandable that he was shocked. After all, this was the legendary scabbard of Excalibur, which belonged to king Arthur, a mythological figure whose legend was known even on the other side of the planet like in Japan.

"But…how?" This was the big question the red head needed to ask his father as he found it hard to believe that the legendary scabbard stolen from Arthur Pendragon before the battle of Camlann would end up in his body by chance. He already had enough headaches trying to figure out why he was carrying a magic suit of armor and a key shaped weapon on him for god's sake.

Eventually, his father decided to quell his son's confusion. "I…had managed to acquire it through some 'connections' a while back and placed it into my body so that I could use it for my work, which had led me to Fuyuki City about a year ago"

"When I found you alive amongst the flames of that disaster, you were badly hurt, so much in fact that you didn't have very much long to live. Since the scabbard was said to grant King Arthur semi-immortality I figured that it would be able to heal your wounds and keep you alive long enough for me to get you to the hospital, so I placed it inside your body so the healing effects would be strongest."

As Kiritsugu stared at his son's amazed expression as the boy placed a hand towards his own chest he decided to continue. "You're really lucky you know, since your probably one of only two individuals to possess a noble phantasm besides the Fraga clan, and besides this would defiantly serve a purpose in our training."

Curious about what his father had in mind Shirou decided to ask. "Really? What do you have in mind old man?" which got a reply as the magus killer smiled at his son

"Well, for starters we can add projecting Avalon as your final Tracing Project"

Hearing this Shirou had only one thing to say. "What?"

Tracing ordinary knives and forks was one thing, projecting something like one of those mystic codes his dad told him about might be difficult but manageable if he put some effort into it, but Tracing a Noble phantasm, especially something created by the fairies, using materials that don't exist in the mortal plane was so outrageous he wasn't sure he could pull it off.

It appeared that Kiritsugu had an idea about what his son was thinking and decided to ease his mind "I know what you're thinking and I'm not saying you should start right away. For now, just continue with what you were doing and try projecting stuff around the house for practice, though make sure to do it in the shed or in your room as we already get enough junk around the house when Fujimura san brings them over"

Shirou nodded his head in agreement as he remembered all the things that the Yakuza princess brings over, which mostly consisted of things that she broke by accident and had to hide them someplace before her grandfather found out. Of course, the two didn't mind at first since it have the boy things to practice his Structural analysis and Reinforcement on. Heck, the red head even managed to fix a few of them and hand them back to the immature teen when she came round.

Eventually, Raiga found out and after chewing his granddaughter out decided to give the boy a bit of spending money as payment every time the kid managed to fix something that the brown haired girl managed to break. Of course, being the helpful kid that he was turned down the payment at first but accepted it after some persuasion from his father.

After hearing what his father had to say, the faker left saying that he just remembered that he promised to fix up a busted VCR that was the latest of machines that the Tiger broke and told Kiritsugu that he wouldn't be long. With that, he left the lounge area and headed out to the front yard towards the tool shed that served as his workshop.

Using his keyblade to undo the lock, the red head undid the chain and entered the sanctuary that served as his place to perfect his skill in Thaumaturgy. Of course, if a true magus were to see this he would either laugh at it saying if this was a joke, or more realistically kill the boy and his father, and then finally torch the place for unintentionally insulting the craft of Thaumaturgy.

Shirou didn't care one bit what so called 'true' magi thought as he didn't see himself as a magus in the first place. Instead, he saw himself as a magic user who uses Thaumaturgy as a tool for self-improvement. Heck, he didn't even care about reaching the Root as that wasn't why he decided to learn magecraft in the first place.

Shaking those thoughts aside as they brought up painful memories, the faker decided to walk towards the armor sitting in the corner with his Earthshaker keyblade. Even though with his new prowess in Tracing, even he wasn't stupid enough to try projecting the blade he was holding as even he could tell that trying something like that would be beyond his abilities at the moment, plus his dad warned him that trying to use magic beyond one's abilities would end up killing the magus.

That also meant the brass armor plate as well but that didn't mean he couldn't use Structural analysis to find out how they tick, which was why he activated his signature activation aria and delved deep into the heart of his weapon via his mind's eye.

The attempt drew a blank in the red heads mind as he couldn't read what the keyblade was made of or how it was made. What he did manage to find out though was the objects history via images of a well-built man around 16 years of age swinging the blade in various formations. Of course, Shirou was unable to make out any other distinguishing features since the images were pretty blurry.

He then saw him perform various feats of thaumaturgy using the weapon as a focus, so far the red head was able to tell that the keyblade was used to manipulate 3 of the primary elements called Earth, Air, and Fire, while also the sub elements of Water and Wind like Ice and Lightning. There were also images of him using Gravity, and Magnetism in order to control the battlefield as well as plant magical mines.

There were also visions of him performing a form of healing magecraft, shooting bolts of different elemental energy, as well as cloaking himself into the same elements and charging at his enemies repeatedly. Finally and most shocking to the kid was the fact that the keyblade he was holding can be morphed into different forms like a hover-bike, and cannon.

Quite frankly, what the red found was amazing to his 7 year old mind as he wished he could do something like that. Due to his father's somewhat limited knowledge of practical mage-craft, the man didn't know much elemental mage-craft outside of his own elements, so the red head didn't think he would be able to learn them in future.

Plus they haven't even figured out the boy's origin yet meaning that they couldn't even start considering elemental thaumaturgy until they figure out Shirou's element is, though if Kiritsugu had to guess he thinks that it might be either Earth or Ether due to the boy's unnatural prowess with projection.

Of course, that still didn't mean Shirou couldn't perform a few experiments of his own as long as they were safe, but the red head was also nervous about it as it could mean the difference between life and death.

That was why the faker decided to see if he could replicate the feats he read from Earthshaker by using one of the spells its previous owner used through it. However, when he channeled some prana through it and said one of the spells he felt nothing happened. He had even went through the entire library of spells that he was able to gleen from the keyblade but still nothing appeared.

Eventually, Shirou decided to stop for the day as he had plenty of time to practice and dismissed his blade before heading back into the house to cook dinner.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(One year later)

It had been almost a year since Shirou learned about how he managed to survive the great Fuyuki Fire and had a noble phantasm placed inside his body that originally belonged to a legendary figure of Arturian myth. By then, some changes had been present in the Emiya household.

The first change that happened was that Kiritsugu took longer to get up than usual, so much so that the red head had to wake him up every morning so that he could help the boy calm Fuji-nee down whenever she came around. Also, it seemed that the magus killer's body had grown weaker over the past year as he seemed to get tired frequently. He didn't even make another month long trip in the past year.

The second change was something that confused the red head as the 33 year old man hadn't used his thaumaturgy for the past month during Shirou's magecraft lessons. When he asked his father about it the black haired man tried to move the conversation away to something else, but he wasn't about to let it happen. The apprentice had hardly saw his teacher use mage-craft for the past year now and wanted to know if Kiritsugu was all right.

The magus killer, of course, didn't answer and said that he was alright but Shirou pointed out that the man was also eating less, resulting in him losing a bit of weight, and Fuji-nee gaining some as she admitted that the man would give her portions of his breakfast to her.

Seeing how insightful his son was, Kritisugu decided that he might as well come clean with his condition. To that end, he called Shirou to his room one night at decided to tell him the truth about his condition.

That the magus, known as Kiritsugu Emiya, was dying.

The red head, of course, was so shocked that he was left in a state of denial saying that the old man was pulling his leg and that he probably caught something when he tried some of Taiga's attempts of home cooking. Eventually, the magus killer ordered his son to use structural analysis on the 33 year old man's body and tell him what the 9 year old saw.

What Shirou found was something that by all accounts should not exist in this world, as he discovered that his father was infected by an extremely powerful A++ curse that was on the level of a Divine mystery, and was eating away at the black haired man's body.

Kiritsugu told the boy during his lessons that Thaumaturgy was in a state of decline, since the age of the gods ended, taking many powerful mysteries with it. Of course, the fact that many magi keep any Thaumaturgy research to themselves didn't help either.

That meant there was something or someone out there, powerful enough to inflict curses that far surpassed anything that modern mage-craft was capable off. This was the conclusion that Emiya Shirou came up with in the hopes of finding who or what did this to his father and get rid of the curse.

Unfortunately, Kiritsugu shot this idea down quickly as the thing that cursed him didn't exist anymore. When his son asked what he meant, the magus killer decided to ask his son if he knew anything about the Holy Grail.

Shirou asked if he meant the ancient cup used by Jesus Christ during the last supper or the item featured in Arturian myth. The magus killer said that the thing he was talking about was neither of those, but was in fact an omnipotent wish granting device created through the joint efforts of three magi families named the Tohsakas, Einzbern, and Makiris, in their quest to reach Akasha, the root of all things.

However, the three families soon discovered that the grail could only grant one wish every 60 years. The truce between them to crumble, resulting in the Holy-Grail-Wars.

When Shirou asked what this had to do with his father's condition, Kiritsugu explained that the war only happens every 60 years, and the last one was 3 years ago. Suddenly, various pieces began to fit in the fakers head resulting in the red head realizing that his adopted father was involved in this Holy Grail War.

Kiritsugu confirmed his suspicions by explaining to Shirou that he was hired by the Einzbern family to compete in the war. His father then explained the concept of summoning Heroic spirits by placing them in prepared servant containers, and having them fight each over for control over the holy-grail.

He then explained the 7 servant containers meant to contain the heroes souls, these included:

Saber, the knight of the sword and usually the most outstanding of the seven,

Archer, the servant of the bow or any projectile weapon and master of the Independent action skill,

Lancer, knight of the spear, considered the most agile of the seven,

Rider, hero of the mount, uses a mount or a vehicle to cause destruction across the battlefield,

Caster, the magus, and uses thaumaturgy lost to the modern era,

Berserker, servant of madness, mindless beasts that trade power in exchange for sanity,

Assassin, hero of stealth and murder and a killer that targets masters specifically.

(I just separated the paragraph to make it visually easier to follow)

The magus killer then explained that the scabbard currently in Shirou's body, was the catalyst located by the Einzberns so that he could use it to summon King Arthur as servant Saber for the war. Now curious, the red head asked what the legendary king of knights was like. His father explained that the knight was exactly what the legends pictured him as, strong, chivalrous, noble, and one of the mightiest sword wielders in the land, except there was one key point that the legends got wrong.

The legendary king of Britain was in-fact a woman by the name of Arturia Pendragon.

Upon hearing this, Shirou asked his father to repeat what he said just to make sure that he heard that right. Kiritsugu admitted that he and Irisviel were just as surprised as the red head when they first summoned her. In-fact, it bothered the magus killer that not only had people let a little girl take the throne of kingship, but also that no one even suspected that she was masquerading as a boy to begin with.

Kiritsugu never went into detail about what went on during the war or his wife's role in the conflict, but he did reveal to his son about the true identity of the Holy Grail, which was a cursed chalice that only granted wishes through destruction. When the magus killer found this out, he rejected the grail, resulting in the omnipotent wish granting device infecting him with a potent curse that would cause his death in 5 years time.

It had been 3 years already since the Emiya adopted Shirou, meaning that Kiritsugu only had 2 years left to live, had adopted Shirou. At that point, the red head didn't know which was worse, finding out that his father was dying and there nothing they could do to stop it, or whether or not to break the news to Fuji-nee.

Shirou might a bit dense due to his young age, but even he could tell that Taiga had feelings for the older man despite the age difference, meaning that she would take the news pretty hard if they did decide to tell her. Heck, even he felt awful after finding this out.

It had been at least 3 years since that day at the Great Fuyuki Fire memorial event, which was held to honor the 600 lives that were lost in that horrific event. The red head would have been among those remembered had Kiritsugu not saved him by implanting Avalon into his body and healed his wounds when his life was nearly at its end.

As he stood there along with his father, watching the grieving parents, siblings, grandparents, lovers, coworkers, and friends as they expressed their feelings at losing someone dear to them, the adopted son of Kiritsugu Emiya made a vow that day.

He swore that he would become strong enough to protect those in need, so that he would never have to see those sad grieving faces ever again. It was stupid and childish as many people die every year, but if there was one thing that defined Shirou Emiya it was his stubbornness.

That was why he wanted to learn Thaumaturgy in the first place, so that he could gain strength needed to protect those closest to him, except now someone he knew was dying from an unbeatable curse and there was nothing Shirou could do to stop it.

However, even though his father was going to perish in 2 years, he managed to make sure that no one else suffers the same fate as him. Kiritsugu explained that the Holy-Grail War happens every 60 years, due to the Greater Grail located underneath mount Ryuudou absorbing mana from Fuyuki's ley-lines, which is necessary for it to punch a hole into Akasha and pull out seven servants from the Throne of Heroes, which are necessary to complete the ritual.

Except that the magus killer had planted explosives at key-points along the cities lifelines, which would detonate and cause an earthquake 30 years later. This unnatural act of nature would disrupt Fuyuki's ley-lines and prevent a Fifth Holy-Grail war from ever happening.

On a side note, Shirou's skill in Tracing had improved quite a bit over the past months. However, that didn't mean that he use his skills in actual combat yet. The only things he could use at his age were some kitchen knives, his keyblade Earth-shaker, and Reinforcement, which the teen uses to reinforce his body beyond his natural limits.

Of course, Shirou was still a 9 year old kid even though he was much more mature for his age, which meant that he still had time to iron out his skills in magecraft, meaning that if his kept up with his training regimen, then the magus killer predicted that his son might be able to handle a trained enforcer, or a weal dead apostle by the time that he enters high school.

However that was still a far ways away from here at the moment, so for now Kiritsugu decided to spend the remaining time that he had left giving his son guidance, and making sure that Shirou would be able to take care of himself when he passes on.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(2 years later)

"Hey old man, are you sure its alright for you to be out her so late, you could catch a cold you know" a certain red head said to his adopted father as he proceeded to sit down on the porch, and looked up to see the full moon shining down on the Emiya estate.

"Thanks for the consideration Shirou, but I'm not dying just yet" the magus killer said as he thought about the state that his body was in, it had already been 5 years now since he was cursed by the grail during the grail war and his body had already reached its limit, so with the remaining time that he had left, the former master of Saber thought about his life up until now.

While it was true that he had hurt a lot of people over the years, the fact that his actions while violent had managed to save many more brought some sort of comfort to the tired veteran, one of which was sitting down next to him.

As his mind drifted to Shirou, he had to admit that while Shirou's progress and insight were startling to the magus, it did come in handy in some cases as it allowed him to think of his actions before he took them, which was an improvement considering his earlier actions.

His skill with the keyblade had improved somewhat as he was able to gleam spells from the weapon thanks to his tracing, of course knowing how to do a spell and actually performing it were two separate things, but the red head was making progress as he was able to use fire and healing mysteries which the boy calls 'fire' and 'cure' respectively.

His tracing was at a slow start in terms of progress, as Shirou was basically creating a new art from scratch, as for tracing Avalon, well the red head admitted that it was an exhausting task since he had trouble analyzing the scabbards make-up and history for some reason, which was understandable since it was an EX noble phantasm created by the Fae.

Kiritsugu just hoped that it would be enough for what lied ahead for the boy when the magus killer passes away.

As the dying man stared at the moon, his mind drifted to a similar time to when he was living in the Philippines with his 'father' and Shirley and thought about what she said one day.

"You know I want to be a hero of Justice"

It was these few words that had set Kiritsugu on the path that few before him never even considered taking outside comic books and tv shows, since the real world was cynical and unfair by its very nature, which is why he adopted the policy of weighing all lives evenly and tipping the scales so the least amount of lives were lost.

It was both cold and ruthless, but it was the only thing the magus killer could do with the countless conflicts that seemed to plague humanity, so much in fact that he was willing to risk everything over a wish granting device that he wasn't sure would work or not, since Irisviel told her husband that the Fuyuki grail was designed to open a hole to Akasha using the seven heroic spirits summoned for the war as sacrifices.

But seeing Shirou's face have color return to it, as the magus killer pulled the boy out of the fire that destroyed the boys life, the man had to admit that despite all the suffering that he went through, he had to admit that hadn't lost faith in the dream just yet.

Which is why he looked to his son in hope, so that one-day he would succeed where he could not, so with that he looked at the moon one more time and hoped that his son had better luck then he had.

"You know Shirou, when I was young I wanted to be a hero of Justice"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(1 year later)

"Master Eraqus, have you gone mad"

He said as he dove down from the sky as he blocked a series of white chains that were aimed at a blonde haired boy who stood there in shock, with his blade out which Shirou recognized as Earthshaker, the boy noticed that he was currently seeing things through someone else's eyes as he glared at the man in front of him.

"Terra, this doesn't concern you, step aside"

"No, I won't" he said as he defiantly stood his ground against the man that was both his teacher and a father figure all in one, how Shirou knew this he had no idea but he did know one thing, his master had just tried to murder the boy behind him and he could let that happen.

"Why must you always ignore what I tell you to do, if you won't obay, then you will have to share Ventus fate" his master said in sorrow while shedding a tear, before charging at Terra while shouting a battle cry, as the boy held his ground against his teacher, Ventus shouted out.

"Enough Terra, he's right"

"Quiet" the wielder of earth shaker said before Eraqus saw an opening in his students guard, and launched a powerful strike that sent the two boys flying towards the other side of the courtyard.

As the keyblader got back up, carrying Ventus in his arm in the process, a great well of darkness erupted from the earth user, as the darkness inside Terras heart was released, if Shirou had to describe it was like a black beast made of shadows that attacked anything its master ordered it too, however the person had to keep a tight hold on the leash, or the dog would run wild on everything and everyone it came across, it was a force that was neither good or evil, but one that relied on instinct.

"As the darkness taken you as well Terra?" Eraqus said in disgust as he was forced to see his eldest student give in to the darkness in his heart.

"You may be my master, but I won't let you hurt my friend!" the darkness user shouted as he opened up a portal behind him with his keyblade and threw Ventus into it so that he could go all out without endangering Ven in the process.

"Wait Terra" Ventus shouted before the portal closed and left Terra alone to face his master all by himself.

While it was true that Master Eraqus was more skilled then his student due to his mastery over the power of light, Terra was the more powerful of the two as he unleashed the power of darkness to enhance the power of his strikes, then there was the fact that the boy had mastered the elements of fire, earth, ice, thunder, and darkness in order to match Eraqus's feats of magic with his own.

However Shirou wanted the fight to stop, as there was no need for the two of them to fight anymore, why had the man who was the pinnacle of keyblad masters try to murder his own student I the first place, why was Terra still fighting even though Ventus was safe, these questions were things the boy didn't know and quite frankly he had more important things to pay attention at the moment, as he was forced to watch as the painful fight was about to reach its climax.

As the master of light prepared another blast of light formed in the shape of chains, Terra saw it coming and side stepped the blast, before dashing towards his master with keyblade raised and landed a downward swing that leaved a large gash across Eraqus's chest.

Soon enough Terra came to his senses and backed away slowly as he stared at his bloodied keyblade in horror "Master Eraqus, what have I done?"

As the older man coughed up some blood from his injury, Eraqus made a sad smile as he contemplated his actions and realized that he made a terrible mistake that caused this tragedy "No, you were right, I failed you Terra, perhaps I've no one to blame but myself for the darkness inside you, and now I've done worse, raised my keyblade against you and ventus, my own heart is darkness"

As Terra approached his master, hoping to make amends, a jet black keyblade had erupted from Eraqus's chest, causing the keyblade master of light to fade away into flickers of light, leaving his keyblade behind as it fell to the ground.

Seeing this Terra fell to his knees "Master" he said in sorrow before Shirou realized that his vision was wavering before darkness enveloped him completely.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

As Shirou Emiya opened his eyes, he realized that he was back in his room of the Emiya estate with the top cover of his futon over him, as he sat up in order to look around, the keyblade user thought about what he just witnessed.

Based on the design of the keyblade and armor that were present in the visions, it was clear that they had belonged to the keyblade wielder called Terra as they possessed to many similarities to be anything else, besides the fighting style that he was able to gleam from Earthshaker matched Terra's perfectly.

Which begged the big question as to why Shirou was suddenly experiencing his memories in the first place, perhaps it was a side effect of his tracing ability since the samurai believe that their souls reside in their weapons.

But for the time being, Shirou decided to think about it for another time, as he needed to get breakfast ready and head for school, for that reason he opened the slide door to his room and walked into the hallway, to be greeted with a completely empty house, which had been that way for the past year now since his father passed away.

After the funeral where only himself and the Fujimuras attended, the red head was offered to stay at Fuji-nees house since he was home alone now, Shirou of course refused the offer politely as he wanted to live in the house that his father and himself lived in for the past 5 years, Raiga of course was reluctant at first but eventually came to a compromise with Shirou to see if he will be alright on his own since he would have to do all the cooking and cleaning in the house on his own.

However Shirou proved over the months that followed, that he could handle himself since the red head found that he had a talent for house hold chores, eventually the Fujimura head agreed to let Shirou live on his own and served as the boys legal guardian, before passing that responsibility to his granddaughter Taiga while he managed the boys finances and the trust fund which Kiritsugu set up before he died.

Of course, there were benefits to Shirou's newfound privacy since he could practice his thaumaturgy and keyblade training in peace, then there was the additional bounded fields which Shirou added to the one attached to the Emiya estate, such as 'notice me not' compulsions that draw attention away from the compound when some of his thaumaturgy experiments get a little extreme.

His Thaumaturgy training had hit a dead end for now, since he couldn't ask his deceased father from beyond the grave to teach him something new, so for now he was stuck refining what Kiritsugu already taught him.

His Keyblade training had improved somewhat from experiencing Terra's memories, so far Shirou had successfully managed to replicate most of his base spells such as Blizzard, Thunder, magnet, Zero Gravity, and so on, then there was the fact that the faker managed to turn his keyblade into a hover bike like Terra did in the visions.

When he tested his weapons new form out, he waited until it was nighttime before hopping on while making sure that he had sufficient warm clothes on, as the faker soared through the night sky he was greeted with the breathtaking sight of the city it was covered in multiple lights that were visible from above.

Seeing that he had already stayed up long enough, the faker decided that it was time for him to go home now and get ready for school tomorrow.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(Somewhere else in the multiverse)

Standing on a vast wasteland populated by dead keyblades was a lone figure wearing a brown coat, this person was Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, and the heartless of a man named Xehanort who was now reduced to just a heart as the price needed to traverse both time and space in order to fufill his goals.

However, the disembodied heart was currently in deep thought as he remembered what one of his minions at reported, from the sounds of it, it seems that a squadron of heartless that he had sent out in order to scout out new worlds to devour had not reported back as they disappeared.

When he sent a replacement team to check the area where the scouts had vanished, he was informed of the existence of multiple worlds identical to each over that were sentient, and did not take kindly to invaders, based on their descriptions and the area where the heartless disappeared, Ansem recognized the worlds as the multiple incarnations of GAIA, the home world of one of his old 'friends' Zelretch.

Now the former keyblade master turned heartless may be curious, but even he wouldn't be stupid enough to venture into GAIA's territory without proper preperation, as not only is the world a virtual deathtrap with a wide variety of things lurking in the shadows, but the world consciousness would crush both him, and any heartless that he happened to send there.

Of course that still didn't mean that he was willing to give up so easily, as there were many things in that world that would suit his purposes just fine in the long run, plus as it just so happens, the heartless managed to sense someone or something that would be able to serve as a back door into the world, allowing any heartless sent through to move around without being detected.

And as it so happens, one of his old friends living in that world had already prepared just such a gate for him to use, he could just imagine the look on Zouken's face when he is devoured by the very darkness he sought to control.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

**Hello viewers, Epicgamer484 here **

**As you already have guessed from reading, this chapter is a rewrite of the previous one in response to some f my reviews.**

**After reading some reviewers saying that I was giving Shirou too many abilities, I realized that they were right, which is why I had to remove a fair chunk of what I already written and added new content in their place.**

**Also for those of you complaining about Shirou learning tracing early, I admit that I didn't want to include it at first, however the idea of tracing an extra keyblade to go with his initial one in order to duel weild, was too good to pass up.**

**So anyways please review, and have a very happy Christmas.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this fic, they belong to Square- Enix and Type-moon.**


	3. Chapter 3

Sword of Earth chapter 3

Shirou Emiya had to admit that for a third rate magus like himself, he had some really weird dreams from experiencing the memories of a Keyblade master named Terra. He dreamt about a vast wasteland covered in swords, spears, axes, halberds, and Keyblades.

However, this one was different from the rest as it started off with the 16-year-old red head falling through a vast darkness. He slowed down as he landed on a hard surface and shield his eyes as a bright light erupted, causing the darkness beneath his feet to change into white birds as they flew off into the distance.

As the faker stood there, he noticed that he was standing on a giant stained glass window, which depicted the image of a blonde haired girl wearing a royal blue dress and silver armor across her chest, hands, feet, and hips. He viewed her from the side where it looked like she was sleeping.

The image also had people in round spaces over her, most of them were wearing armor and looked like knights from the times of medieval England. As he continued to admire the stained glass window that he was standing on, a voice suddenly met his ears.

"So much to do, so little time, take your time, don't be afraid."

Suddenly, three pillars emerged from the platform beneath him in portals of light.

"Power sleeps within you. If you give it form, it will give you strength."

Shirou looked at the pillars as they emerged from the ground. He noticed that there was an item present on each of the three pillars, one was a double edged sword, with a yellow guard, a red spot in the centre, and a blue handle. On the second platform was a red and black shield with a hidden Mickey symbol etched into it. The third and final item was a green staff with a blue hidden Mickey stone at the top.

Now Shirou maybe slightly ignorant of the thaumaturgical side of magic, but even he could tell that these three artifacts were very powerful, which is why he decided to approach them one by one and see what they were about. As he stood in front of the first piller and held the sword in his hands, the same voice echoed.

"The power of the warrior, invincible courage, a sword of terrible destruction"

"Is this the power you seek?" As Shirou heard this, he went into thought before deciding that he might as well check out the other items and make his decision. With that, he put the sword back on the pillar and headed for the next one. As he picked up the shield, that same voice spoke.

"The power of the Guardian, kindness to aid friends, a shield to repel all"

"Is this the power you seek?" It said before Shirou shook his head. This was something that needed to be taken carefully as he needed to consider all other options before making a decision, so with that he approached the final pillar on the stained glass window, he picked up staff, causing that same voice to echo.

"The power of the Mystic, Inner strength, a staff of wonder and ruin."

"Is this the power you seek?" With that final option, he said no before putting the staff back, before heading back to the centre of the circle in order to consider his options.

From what he could gather, the sword, shield, and staff each embodied an aspect of Shirou's inner power that laid dormant inside of him. For example, the sword embodied attack and striking power, the shield embodied endurance and defense, while the staff symbolized his abilities as a magus.

That means by choosing one of the three items, his abilities would focus more on what aspect he chose rather than the other two. Seeing that he has almost zero talent as a magus outside of using the keyblade, Shirou decided not to use the staff. That left both the sword and shield.

"Kindness to all friends, a shield to repel all." He thought as the voice describing the shield resonated in his head. While he was tempted to choose the shield due to it resonating with his ideal, he decided to go with the Sword since using the keyblade is what he was good at.

With that, he approached the pillar where the sword resided. As he picked it up, that same voice asked once again if this was the power he sought, which he answered by saying yes. Suddenly, the sword in his hand disappeared and was replaced with a keyblade that was similar to Earthshaker, only the omega symbol was acting as the guard, with the brass blade bigger and sporting rectangular teeth on each side of the tip. From what Shirou's structural analysis could gather, this keyblade was the evolved form of Earthskaker called Ends of the Earth.

Suddenly, the other pillars vanished into the ground, causing the glass stained window beneath him to break into multiple pieces and send the keyblader plummeting once again into darkness. As he fell, he spotted another glass stained window that was different from the last one as it was red, as opposed to the blue one he stood on before.

As he landed on the second window, Shirou noticed that the red window he was standing on featured another girl in a dress. This one had black hair done in twin pigtails, and wearing a red dress while having her eyes clothes and standing to the side. Suddenly, Shirou realized that the person he was looking at seemed familiar, and recognized it as Tohsaka Rin, the resident school idol at Homurahara high, the school where he goes to.

Suddenly, black portals across the window appeared to reveal several creatures with black bodies, webbed hands, and bright yellow eyes that had no pupils.

"You have the power to fight, use it to protect yourself, as well as others." The same voice said before Shirou summoned his keyblade and dashed towards the black creatures with Ends of the Earth raised in an overhead swing. He swung it down on the first target, moved to the second creature, and done a side sweeping cut. Finally, he saw that the third had launched an attack against Shirou. Luckily, the red head saw it coming and moved his keyblade to block and counterattacked by slamming his keyblade into the ground, causing a shockwave that destroyed the third black monster, as well as the others that had moved in for the kill.

As the defeated monsters melted away into darkness, the faker noticed that his strikes just now were slightly more powerful than before. Even without using reinforcement, he deduced that it must have had something to do with the power of the warrior that he choose before. As he thought about what other benefits such a power would grant him, the black creatures he already defeated had melted into black pools, which were expanding rapidly until the entire glass window beneath him was covered in darkness, causing the red head to sink in like he was stuck in quicksand.

As he flailed about trying to free himself from the darkness, he looked around to see that he was on another stained window. This one featured a girl with plum colored hair, and wearing a purple dress, Shirou immediately recognized it as his kouhai Sakura Matou, the younger sister of his former friend Shinji, and someone who visits his house every morning to cook breakfast for the him and Fuji-nee.

As he got up to survey the other areas of the area he was in, he saw that there was a lone door, which had a light purple color to it. As Shirou approached the door, he thought about where it might lead. After all, this dream was becoming more and more weird the more he pressed on. However, he decided that he had already proceeded further enough and felt that he could handle whatever was thrown his way.

With that out the way, Shirou grabbed the door handle and pulled it open, causing bright light to blind the red head once again. When he opened his eyes, he noticed that he was atop the roof of his high school while it was still day time.

As he surveyed the rooftop, he noticed that there were three people on that rooftop along with him. One was a black haired teen with glasses who Shirou immediately recognized as the student council president Ryuudou Issei, then there were the other two who Shirou immediately recognized as Rin and Sakura.

"Issei? Rin? Sakura? What are you three doing here?" He asked the three of them, which didn't get a reply as they stared at the red head with their different facial expressions. It was then that Shirou realized that the three of them were not really his schoolmates, as they were probably another part of this weird dream.

"Hold on, the door won't open just yet, tell me more about yourself" As if to confirm his suspicions, that same voice could be heard, meaning that if Shirou wanted to proceed, then he needed to do something that involved these three replicas of his friends and the school idol.

With that in mind, he approached the Issei clone first, only to blink as he asked a rather strange question.

"What's more important to you?" The fake Issei asked which caused Shirou to blink. It was something that the red head never really thought about. After thinking about it for a minute, the red head had his answer.

"My ideals," he said without hesitation. Since the day that his father died 5 years ago, Shirou swore that he would become a hero of justice strong enough to save everyone. It was for that reason that he pushed his body and mind, to the absolute limits of his abilities.

With that said, Issei nodded his head before turning his head to Sakura, which meant that he needed to speak to her next. With that figured out, Shirou moved towards the illusion resembling Sakura, who then asked the red head a question.

"What do you want out of life?" She asked. The faker thought about what she said, before answering her question.

"To become a hero," he said with conviction. It might be a childish and borrowed ideal, but it was something that he had strived to achieve for as long as he had been alive. With that said, Fake Sakura smiled and pointed towards the school idol Rin, who after meeting the red head face to face gave the final question.

"What are you so afraid of?" She asked. Her question caused Shirou to blink in surprise. To be honest, Shirou had never really thought about scared him before, so he wasn't really sure what he was scared of. To be honest, he did feel a trickle of fear whenever Fuji-nee steps within his kitchen, as he still remembered what she made in order to practice her cooking skills. Actually, now that he thought about it, there was something he feared happening more than anything.

"To lose those important to me." It was a natural response as he didn't think what he would do if either Fuji-nee or Sakura died, after losing his father Kiritsugu to a curse.

"Your ideals are what's most important to you. You want to become a hero. You are afraid of losing those important to you. Your journey starts at midday. Keep a steady pace and you will do fine." The voice said as the illusions of his friends and Rin vanished, leaving Shirou alone on the rooftop.

"The day that you will help him open the door is both far off and very near." The voice once again said before Shirou was blinded again, only to appear on another stained glass window that was purple this time. There was a silver haired girl aged between 12-13 dressed in winter clothes.

Suddenly, a bright light erupted from above and shined on the other side of the stained glass window. As the red head got closer to the light, his shadow also got bigger and bigger.

"The brighter the light, the stronger the shadow" the voice said as Shirou's shadow mutated and rose to the surface, until it formed into a giant black behemoth that dwarfed Shirou's by several feet. The red head, of course, was slightly intimidated by such a huge enemy and summoned his keyblade ready to fight.

Waiting for the darkside heartless to make its move, the red head went over the list of mysteries that he knew from synchronizing with Terras memories for the past 5 years. Based on what he could gather, the spells that the keyblader could use were from a style of magecraft that focused on the concept of the 'heart', allowing the red head to perform feats and so called 'multi-verse' mysteries that were impossible for modern magi to achieve and wouldn't have been out of place during the Age of the Gods.

Thank god that Shirou wasn't a member of the association, as he didn't want to think about what would happen to him, should he be discovered by the clock tower. The nightmares that he had when Kiritsugu explained the concept of sealing designations to the boy were bad enough.

Suddenly, Shirou's instincts flared up, as he looked up to see a giant black fist flying towards him to turn him into a sticky red smear on the glass floor. Not wanting that to happen, the red head managed to dash out the way as the giants fist collided with the ground, causing a great black portal to appear. Suddenly, more of those black creatures that Shirou fought before appeared from the hole to head towards the keyblade wielder.

As Shirou finished off the shadows, he saw that more of them were appearing from the portal and in great numbers as well, which means that as long as that portal was open, those black creatures would just keep coming no matter what. Normally in this situation if he had no magic to call upon, the red head would have run up the darksides arm, and landed blows on the giants head while its arm was still locked on the ground, just like a certain brown haired kid with spikey hair would have done in this situation.

However as it just so happened Shirou did know how to cast magic, and he knew just the spell to give the black giant a good 'jolt'.

"Thundaga" he shouted as he raised his keyblade to the sky and smiled in satisfaction as a giant bolt of electricity erupted from the sky and fried the darkside with over 10,000 volts of electricity.

Thundaga was an upper B rank high-tier spell that Shirou managed to learn from a combination of using Tracing to analyze the keyblades history and Shirou's own experience with seeing Shirou's memories (Not sure what you mean by Shirou seeing his own memory), by using the keyblade as a focus in order to call down either a single bolt of lightning, or multiple ones from above in order to decimate his enemies.

There was also other spells that the Emiya managed to learn over the past 5 years, but those were a story for another day as he was currently surveying the damage caused by his concentrated bolt of magical electricity. However, upon seeing that the darkside heartless could still put up a fight, Shirou decided that some more drastic measures were in order and prepared to cast another Thundaga spell.

(5 minutes later)

As Shirou collapsed on the ground using his keyblade as a support, the red head looked up to see that the giant was dissolving into black mist after being subjected to multiple Thundaga spells, thank god that that the giant was so slow as he didn't think that the same thing would work multiple times in a row. There was also the fact that the red head was currently out of prana to use. Casting multiple A rank spells one after the other really did a number on his reserves, but after seeing the defeated enemy that was starting to fade away, Shirou had to admit that it was totally worth it.

Suddenly, the darkside collapsed on top of him as its blank yellow eyes stared back at the faker while he was being dragged into the darkness. Right then, the same voice that he had heard throughout this dream.

"Don't be afraid. You hold the mightiest weapon of all, so don't forget:"

"You are the one who will help him open the door"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(Fuyuki City, Emiya Residence)

As Shirou opened his eyes, he was greeted the familiar sight of the wooden plates that served as the second floor of the tool shed chosen as his workshop. As the keyblade wielder sat up to gather his bearing, he realized that he was currently in his work clothes, with a piece of mechanical equipment laying in front of him, which he remembered fixing last night.

That meant he must have slept in the tool shed again. It was a bad habit of his that he tended to repeat, whenever he works late at night either fixing old appliances, or working on his thaumaturgy, seeing that there was not much light outside, Shirou looked at his watch and noticed that it was 6:00 am in the morning, meaning that he still had enough time to grab a shower, get dressed, and eat breakfast.

As the red head yawned. He lay back down on reflex, only to see the familiar image of a plum haired girl looking down on him upside down from his position.

"Good morning Sempai" She said before Shirou jumped in surprise at having someone sneak up behind him when he was having a small rest. As he straightened out and turned to his kouhai, Sakura giggled a bit at this reaction.

"Give me a break Sakura," he said as he looked at his friend who comes round his house every morning.

Sakura Matou was a first year at the high school where he goes to and also part of the archery club where he used to go too. She was also the younger sister of the club's vice-captain Shinji Matou, someone that used to be a friend of Shirou's until they had a sort of falling out due to their conflicting personalities.

How Sakura came to visit Shirou's house tied in to the reason for Shirou leaving the Archery club in the first place. During one of Shirou's part time jobs working at the local ship yard, one of the containers had lost its footing and was going to fall over one of the workers there. Shirou, of course, pushed the guy out of the way and ended up with sulfuric acid on his shoulder. Naturally, he was immediately rushed to the hospital in order to get it treated right away.

The red head would have used Curaga to heal the injury since it was a minor one. However, he couldn't do it while the hospital staff was watching him, so he decided to pay his medical fees and head home since there wasn't a health care plan in Japan (I'm pretty sure all Japanese would have health insurance coverage by law) to heal his wounds with thaumaturgy.

Fuji-nee of course went ballistic when she heard about the accident and told Shirou he was not allowed to come to school until his injury was fully healed. Sakura volunteered to help her sempai do the house chores, and cooking while he recovered.

After the red head recovered, he went back to school in order to catch up on his schoolwork, since he was gone for 2 weeks recovering. He also decided to quit the Archery club since Shinji told him that exposing his injured shoulder would look bad on him. Of course, that was just an excuse the red head had to make as the real reason he left the archery club involved the three marks that appeared on his hand a few months ago, which could only mean one thing.

The Holy Grail war was starting again 40 years early.

Shirou had heard about the command seals given to master candidates from what his father said about the fourth war, so the red head had a panic attack, realizing that the brutal conflict that caused the Fuyuki City fire was happening again after only 10 years.

It was the reason he was forced to quit the Archery club, since he needed every second of free time he could use in order to push his mind and body to the absolute limit, and hopefully be strong enough to make it out of this conflict alive. Plus, none of the other competitors knew that the grail was corrupted, so Shirou needed to win the war and destroy the grail so that another catastrophe like the Great Fuyuki city fire would never happen again.

He also needed to think about who the grail would choose as master candidates for the war, since the Tohsaka, Matou, and Einzbern families created the ritual in the first place. It was clear that they would be guaranteed spots in the war. Of course, that still left who of the three families would be chosen.

Tohsaka Rin from his school was obviously a master candidate, since she had the same last name as the family charged with overseeing the land of Fuyuki. It was one of the reasons why he never talked to the school idol directly other than a third party exchange due to her friendship with Ayako, since the twin tailed girl would easily tell that he was a magus from the miniscule prana generated from Shirou's circuits.

The Einzbern family would probably send one of their homunculi as a master, since he doubted that they would hire another freelancer to represent them after Kiritsugu betrayed the family by destroying the grail during the last war. Of course, now that he thought about he should probably be on the lookout for the Einzbern master since he had a feeling that the German family would take their frustrations out on him as Kiritsugu's adopted son.

Then there were the Matous, which Shirou admitted to not wanting to fight as there was a chance that either Sakura or Shinji would be chosen. It was the main reason that the red head let the plum haired girl keep coming round his house, so that he could keep a closer eye on her should the war escalate and to check whether she was chosen as a master or not.

But so far, the red head hasn't seen the marks of a command seal anywhere on her body much to his relief. Coming out of his thoughts, Shirou decided to ask the plum haired girl something.

"Hey Sakura, what are you doing in here anyway? Is it already time for breakfast?" he asked which caused the girl to shake her head in silence.

"Not really sempai, I just wanted to make sure that you wouldn't be late for school today since you decided to sleep in the shed again." She replied which caused Shirou to notice that Sakura was in an unusually happy mood today.

"Oh and don't worry about breakfast. I'll go and cook it for you if you want." The plum haired girl said.

"Sakura, you know that I can't just let you do all the cooking alone, at least wait for me to help you." The red head replied. He didn't like the idea of Sakura doing all the cooking by herself since Japanese food isn't her specialty.

However, she shook her head and said "It's alright sempai. I do it because I want to. Besides, it's only on rare occasions that I get to wake you up like this"

"Nevertheless, I can't just leave you to do the cooking by yourself. I'll go help you right now." He said as he got up and headed for the tool shed door.

"Em Sempai, don't you think you should get changed first?" The plum haired girl nervously said, before Shirou blinked and looked down, noticing that he still had his overalls on.

These were the clothes that Shirou usually wore when he was working or fixing things in his tool shed. However, it seemed that he had fallen asleep last night when fixing an old VCR player. Realizing that Fuji-nee would flip if he came into the lounge looking like this, the red head sighed.

"I see, thanks for telling me Sakura, could you perhaps keep Fuji-nee busy while I get changed?" Sighing in defeat, Shirou headed for the laundry room in order to dump his overalls in the wash, then to his room to change.

(15 minutes later)

"It's about time you got here Shirou. I've been waiting." A certain brown haired woman said as she was munching on the traditional Japanese food that Sakura cooked for the three of them.

"Sorry about that Fuji-nee," he said before sitting down and looked his portion of breakfast that his kouhai made. It was hard to believe that just a few months ago, Sakura wasn't very good at cooking, so seeing as she volunteered to cook for him, the red head decided to teach her some cooking tips. The end result was that the plum haired girl became superior to Shirou in terms of western food.

"Itadakimasu" the three of them said before they digged in. It was a quiet breakfast morning like every day since neither Shirou or Sakura were the talkative types. In fact, the only one who was making any noise was Fujimura Taiga as she was reading a newspaper.

"Fujimura-sensei, don't you think you shouldn't read during meals?" Sakura said as she looked at the teacher make eying gestures, like she watched too many spy movies last night.

"Sorry Sakura, but could you pass me the soy sauce?" Shirou asked.

"Here you go…? Sempai, the soy sauce is empty." She said in surprise as she showed me the container, sure enough the soy sauce was empty as there was nothing in it.

"In that case I'll have some of Fuji-nee's. Is that alright with you?" Shirou asked the older woman, who looked up from her paper and nodded, soon enough Sakura grabbed the container and handed it to Shirou.

"Here you go sempai. Are you going to use it on the yam soup?" She asked which caused the red head to explain.

"Yep, you usually use soy sauce for yam soup don't you?" The keyblade wielder said before putting the soy sauce into the yam soup, stirred it until it was mixed, and then took a sip.

He choked on it seconds later as a horrible taste attacked his taste buds, causing to almost throw up. "Uh, this is terrible…this is oyster sauce. I almost threw it back up"

Soon enough, hysterical laughter invaded the room as Fujimura Taiga threw her newspaper away and gave a triumphant smile, "so how was it? It was my plan to switch the labels around while nobody was looking." She then threw up her arms in the air to show how happy she was.

"Wha, What were you thinking? You're always like this even though you'll be turning 25 this year." Shirou said in annoyance as he noted that Fuji-nee was still as immature as ever.

"Ha ha, that was just a little divine punishment for what you did yesterday, it wasn't nice to pick on me with everyone"

"Divine punishment doesn't come from humans. I thought you were looking a little suspicious this morning, but this is what you were thinking about?!" Shirou asked in annoyance.

"Yep, that's right, that's why I should go now to grade the exams now. Yep, I should hurry up." The immature teacher said before going back to her breakfast and began with her meal.

Suddenly, she remembered something and looked at Shirou, as if remembering something, "Oh Shirou, about that transfer student you said was attending the school this week, what time did you say she was going to arrive from the airport?"

"Oh that? Well, Arthur said over the phone that her flight got delayed a bit due to weather, so she won't he here until tonight" The red head said as this was something that he had planned for weeks after deciding on the servant he was going to summon.

"I see. In that case, here is the female school uniform you asked for, and don't worry about the paper work. I made sure to get it done before she arrives." The brown haired woman said before placing her chopsticks down and grabbed a sealed package containing the uniform that Shirou asked for.

"Well, I best get going now and try not to be late today, as it would make me very sad if you do." She said before walking to the exit, leaving the two teenagers to finish eating their meals.

After finishing, Sakura looked towards Shirou and asked "Sempai, what did Fuji-nee say about a transfer student?"

"Oh that? Well, one of Kiritsugu's old friends from overseas asked if he could send his daughter overseas in order to learn the culture behind Japan, and since they were good friends, I volunteered to let her stay over my house for a few weeks."

It was a lie of course. While it was true that a foreign transfer student was going to attend their school tomorrow, his adopted father never had any friends overseas. The uniform was for his servant to wear the next day after he summoned her tonight.

Kiritsugu had mentioned before he died that King Arthur, who he summoned during the fourth war under the Saber class was in fact a woman by the name of Arturia Pendragon. Also, for some strange reason, she was unable to go into spirit form, meaning that if he wanted to be properly protected against enemy masters and servants, he needed some way to get Saber inside the school.

That's where the uniform and foreign exchange student forms came in, as it not only gave Shirou the ability to take his servant with him to school, but also a way to keep an eye out for enemy masters and react accordingly should they try anything.

Seeing that she was satisfied with the explanation, Sakura took the empty dishes to the kitchen and helped Shirou clean up before going to school with him.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Honestly Emiya, you really are a lifesaver." The student council presedent Issei Ryuudou said with gratitude as the third rate magus agreed to fix one of the heaters for the room, which unfortunately broke due to old age. Worse still, it was currently winter.

"Don't, worry about it Issei, I'm just glad that I could be here to help." Shirou said as he examined the piece of electrical hardware while figuring out what was wrong. Realizing that he would need to use structural analysis in order to fix it, the faker decided to ask issei to leave the room as he don't want to expose his thaumaturgy to the trainee monk. There was also another thing that he needed to ask.

"Hey Issei, can I ask you something?" The red head asked, causing the glasses wearing boy to turn his head to him in curiosity.

"Sure Emiya what is it?" The student council president replied before Shirou decided to ask what he needed to know.

"Have there been any strange events at the temple or anything, such as foreign visitors, or unexplained events." It was something that he needed to be sure about, since Ryuudou temple rested on a dormant leyline. Plus, there was the fact that a powerful bound field rested on the mountain, making it a practical fortress and invincible stronghold should a magus decide to set up shop on the mountain.

That was why Shirou needed to know if there were any strange visitors to the temple, as they might be enemy masters or servants, meaning that Issei and the monks who live there would be in danger.

"Well, there is Kuzuki-sensei's fiancé who moved in with him a few weeks. She definitely fits the description of a foreigner now that you think about it." The student council president said, which caused Shirou's eye to widen as multiple scenarios went through his head.

Shirou Emiya, of course, knew that Kuzuki sensei was not a normal person by any means. Not only did he have the demeanor and body language of an Assassin, he also had a refined understanding of the breathing and walking technique, then there was the foreigner that he was with as he didn't think that the teacher was the type for romance.

Shirou decided to ask the student council president for more information "Issei, sorry to be a bother, but could you describe this foreigner in more detail?"

"Well that's the thing. To tell the truth, I don't know much about her myself. She hardly leaves her room, and the only times that I see her is when she was in sensei's company. However, there was something that I found odd out her."

"What was it?" The red head asked before he noticed that his nose was acting up. It was then that something was very wrong, as Issei started to clutch his head in pain. Suddenly, the red head backed away just in time to avoid the knife that Issei had in his hand.

"Issei?!" Shirou said in frightened and surprise at having his friend try to stick a knife in his gut, before noticing that his pupils had diluted, like he was in a trance.

"Could someone be controlling him or something?" He thought before dodging another knife thrust. If that was true, then he needed to get rid of it or his friends life could be in danger.

"Sorry about this Issei." He thought before running towards the controlled trainee monk, disarmed him by grabbing the knife and throwing it away, grab his body and throw it on the ground, then summoned his keyblade in order to do the next thing he needed to do in order to save his friends life. Suddenly, Issei's eyes widened and developed into a smirk.

"Impressive, to think that there still exists a keyblade wielder in this day and age." He said. The strange mixture of a man and woman's voice surprised the red head, both for the fact that Isseis personally and voice just changed, but also his knowledge of the keyblade.

Suddenly, Shirou remembered that his friend was being controlled by a third party, meaning that the person who was controlling Issei was a magus who had set up shop at Ryuudou temple and had hypnotized his friend as a safety measure in case anyone found out.

"I take it that you are the magus who set up their workshop at Ryuudou temple?" He asked causing issei's face to nod.

"Correct Keybearer, I had placed a simple compulsion on this young one to attack anyone who asks about me directly, though to be honest I didn't expect you to be in possession of something that hasn't been seen since the age of the gods."

"You know about the keyblade? Shirou asked in surprise. Even though he was able to learn a great deal about his weapon over the last 10 years, he still didn't know about either its history or any other abilities that it might have.

"Correct, while I have a general knowledge of the keys existence, I unfortunately do know much about it since it is a weapon whose origins transcends this world and had come from beyond the transdimentional walls. I believe you know of it as the second magic." She said which caused Shirou to blink in surprise. He didn't think that his keyblade came from another world, let alone another dimension entirely.

"Actually, I have a proposal for you. Would you like to join me in my endeavors? You will be handsomely compensated of course, and I can teach you things about the keyblade that you didn't think was possible."

Hearing its proposal, Shirou thought about it for a moment, "Before I give my answer, may I ask for your name?

"You may call me Caster young one." The voice said which caused Shirou to silently cursed. If she really was a heroic sprit summoned by the grail, then there were all sorts of things a magus of Casters caliber could do if she set up her workshop on a location like Ryuudou temple.

One of the things she could to was use her abilities for thaumaturgy to tap into the leyline underneath Ryuudou temple, meaning that she wouldn't even need a master as long as she continues to feed off the leyline. If that was true, then it was possible that Caster was responsible for the recent string of gasleaks.

There were no deaths yet, but the fact that she was willing to sacrifice innocent people for her selfish needs went against everything that Shirou stood for. There was no way the red head could trust anything she said.

"I'm afraid that I'll have to decline your offer Caster, since I don't want to associate myself with a villain who steals energy from innocent people"

"What!?" The voice asked.

"Exactly what I said Caster, I don't know your reasons for why you are doing this, or the kind of wish you have that you would sacrifice innocent people for your goals, but know that I will stop you and make you pay for your crimes"

He then built up magical energy in the tip of his keyblade.

"I don't exactly think that your master Kuzuki-sensei would appreciate Issei getting expelled for bringing a knife to school, so I'll have to get rid of that compulsion you placed on him." He said before preparing one of his Anti-thaumaturgy spells.

"DISPEL!"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Deep underneath Ryuudou temple, where Caster's temple resides, the heroic spirit was forced to shield her face as the crystal ball she was using to observe the world through the young monk shattered from the magical feedback caused by Shirou getting rid of the spell she placed on the boy.

Of course, it wasn't a perfect solution as she was now covered in small cuts, all of which healed right away thanks to her being an existence surpassing humanity both in physical ability and magecraft.

As she cursed in ancient Greek, Cater had to admit that the boy was good, while the spell she placed on the Issei boy wasn't very powerful by her standards, it was still something that even a first rate magus from this time would have difficulty dispelling, and yet the keyblade wielder had managed to get rid of it with a single word.

If that boy was to be a master in the war, which was highly likely considering the fact that the Saber and Archer classes haven't been summoned yet. It was likely that he was going to be very hard to beat considering the magic resistance of the knight classes.

If Caster was to have any chance of winning the war, she needed some way of dealing with the boy and fast, before he had a chance of summoning his servant. Fortunately, the witch had just the hitman in mind, who was currently serving as a guard dog by the front gate to the temple.

Thanks to the generous 'donation' of another magus who was chosen by the Holy Grail, Caster was able to transfer the mage's command seals onto herself, and then summon a servant herself. Unfortunately, two problems arose when she tried this, first because it was an illegal summoning, she ended up calling a wraith by the name of Sasaki Kojirou, instead of one of the Hassans like she wanted.

Second, because she was a spiritual entity herself, she would be unable to serve as an anchor to bind Assassin to the physical world, so she was forced to cheat and bind the fake servant to the gate in front of the temple to serve as a guard for the only safe entry into her territory.

Fortunately, Caster had a rather high rank in item construction, so it was easy for her to construct a charm out of the entryway, which would serve as a link between Assassin and the gate, allowing him to venture forth outside the confines of the temple.

It was still a big risk though, since it would leave her temple unguarded against the other servants, especially if Lancer, Berserker, or Rider were to take advantage of Assassins absence to attack. However, it was a risk she had to take.

Now she just needed to do was ask Souichirou-sama where the boy lives since he was a member of the school faculty where the keyblade wielder attends, and then order Assassin to take his life. It was such a perfect plan that Caster laughed in triumph.

After-all, what could possibly go wrong?

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was already past noon, as Shirou Emiya was on his way home after doing a shift at his part-time job working at the bar called Copenhagan. The bar was owned by a kind man whose daughter, Neko-san, is an old friend of Fuji-nee. The pay itself was good since he managed to earn 30,000 yen in a single day, when it usually would have taken a week to earn that much.

As the red head walked up the hill towards his house, he stopped to find an odd sight. There was a silver haired girl about 12-13 who had stopped further up the hill and was staring at him with ruby colored eyes.

The girl in question looked European, due to her not possessing the squinted eyes unique to Asians, and was dressed in purple winter clothes combined with a white scarf and matching purple hat. As she walked down the hill and passed the red head, she said something to him as he passed.

"You'll die if you don't summon it soon, Onii-chan." The little girl said as she walked down the hill.

As the red head heard this, he thought about what she meant. Suddenly, it all clicked in place as the red head realized that the girl must be another master candidate like him. However, that wasn't important right now as he noticed something about the girls looks that seemed really familiar.

She bore a striking resemblance to another silvery white haired woman with ruby eyes that he saw in his father's memories all those years ago.

"Hey, wait up a second" Shirou shouted as he just realized that he was running towards the purple haired girl before his brain caught up, only to stop to catch his breath as the girl looked at him in shock.

"Um….huh" she said as she didn't know what to say next.

After a few seconds, Shirou decided to say something "Sorry to interrupt your stroll Oujo-chan, but I noticed that you were outside without an escort. You do know it's dangerous out here with all the recent murders and gas leaks right?"

Seeing that she was still recovering from the unexpected, the little girl regained her composure and replied." I do appreciate the concern mister, but I am perfectly capable of looking after myself, so if you'll excuse me I must be going"

It was then that Shirou felt a mild killing intent coming from the girl. However, that was to be expected if his suspicions were right, so he needed to gain her trust first.

"I'm pretty sure you are, but I know for a fact that Fuji-nee would have my hide, if I just leave a cute little girl like you out here when all sorts of unsavory people could do who knows what."

Suddenly, he placed one hand over his other, as if he had a brilliant idea. "I know. Why don't you come round my house and I can phone your home to pick you up. You do know your home phone number right?"

Caught off-guard by the unexpected offer, the girl could only dumbly nodded her head in agreement before Shirou said. "Great, then it's decided. My house isn't far from here so I'll walk with you to it. I hope you don't mind a Japanese style house even though it's a bit old.

He then remembered that he didn't catch her name. "You know I don't believe that I got your name yet. My name is Shirou Emiya. What's yours Oujo-chan?"

"It's Illyasviel von Einzbern" she said after a brief moment contemplating if she should give her name.

"I knew it" Shirou thought as he was one step closer to finding out the truth of his father.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To say that Illyasviel von Einzbern was confused was a severe understatement.

After arriving in Japan for the Holy Grail war, she had gone out into the city in order to check up on the son of the man who had betrayed the Einzbern family during the last war and cost the magus clan a long sought after victory, after three consecutive losses during the last three grail wars.

For Illya, this was personal. She wanted to see the boy that her father Kiritsugu Emiya choose to raise rather then come back to his own daughter after losing the last war, and then exact revenge on the boy for taking her father away from her for 10 years, leaving the girl at the mercy of her 'family' and to be subjected to agonizing pain and torture in preparation for a war that was 40 years early than normal.

They had even forced her to summon the greatest hero of ancient Greece, Heracles, under the Berserker class, exactly a year before the war started. Plus, they even threw her out into the wilderness to conduct the ritual outside and almost gotten her eaten by a pack of wolves had Berserker not slaughtered them after he got summoned.

Even worse was that the Einzberns had performed body modification on Illya so that she would serve as the lesser grail vessel in time for the war and grafted special command seals on her body that would never run out as long as she uses them once a day. They also modified her circuits to produce the maximum prana output necessary to support a madness empowered Heracles without the grails support.

There were drastic side effects to this treatment, however. Not only did the procedure stunted her growth so that she still looked like a kid when she was really 18 years old, but it had also shortened her life span so much, that she would only have a year left to live should she be lucky enough to survive the war.

The knowledge of her impending doom didn't exactly improve Illyasviel's motivation to win the war for her family. In fact, one of the reasons she was going to Fuyuki in the first place was to exact revenge on the boy that her father adopted.

However, what she didn't know was that the Einzberns had lied to her about her father, as Kiritsugu had tried to breach their bounded fields in order to see his daughter, but got turned down every-time. This was done to reinforce Illyasviel's belief that her father abandoned her.

After all, what motivated a dying-girl to fight in a brutal free-for-all was revenge.

Imagine her surprise when the person she was motivated to kill in a very painful way, just walk up to her without a care in the world, and then offer to ask if she wants to come home with him so that her maids could pick her up, since it was apparently dangerous this time of night with all the gas leaks and murders plaguing the city.

It was something that had threw all the different plans she had when her brother entered the war out of the window. She never actually planned to talk with him before the war even started.

Illya, of course, was suspicious of this random act of kindness. It didn't match someone who was raised by someone like the magus killer, which was why she let out a bit of killing intent to scare the boy into going away. She was surprised to find that not only was he not even fazed by it, but was insistent she come with him since this person called 'Fuji-nee' who Illya remembered was probably Taiga Fujimura, the 24 year old school teacher who serves as Emiya Shirou's legal guardian, according to the Intel that her family gathered on the boy.

Deciding to play along for now, Illya decided that she might as well see the house where her father supposedly spent his remaining days and get a clear idea on what kind of person Emiya Shirou was. With that in mind, she gave the red head her name and walked with him to his house.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Welcome back…sempai who is this?" Sakura asked with suspicion as she saw Shirou arrive home with a visitor in tow, especially since it was a little girl only 5 years younger than they were.

Seeing her confusion, Shirou decided to elaborate. "Oh sorry about that Sakura, I should have called ahead and let you know that we had an extra guest. She's someone I met near the residential area who was walking alone by herself. I decided to offer her to stay here for a while before her family picks her up with the recent string of gas leaks and murders lately."

As if on cue, Illya did a curtsy and introduced herself. "My name is Illyasviel von Einzbern. It's a pleasure to meet you Miss Sakura."

Seeing the plum haired girls eyes widen as she recognized the name, Illya smiled and continued. "Emiya-san here was gracious enough to let me stay here till my maids pick me up, since it is so dangerous in Fuyuki right now. I hope that is not too much of a problem for you Matou-san"

Not missing the fact that Sakura clenched her arm tightly in response, she nevertheless smiled. "Not at all Einzbern-san, please make yourself at home. I'll go get dinner ready. I hope you don't mind Japanese food"

"No, that is fine. I wanted to know what Japanese cuisine tastes like to tell the truth." The fairy like girl replied back before sitting down at the table and grabbed the remote to watch TV while she waited.

As Shirou went into the kitchen to help Sakura with dinner, he noticed that the girl was acting a bit strange. She was still acting like normal. However, she had a faint aura around her that anyone watching could tell she was displeased about something.

"Sakura, is there something wrong?" The red head asked, hoping to get to the bottom of this as he grabbed the ingredients for the plum haired girl to cook from the fridge.

"Sempai, forgive me for saying this, but are you sure it's a good idea for her to stay here?" She said looking at him seriously.

"What was I supposed to do Sakura? she was out by herself at night when there are a string of gas leaks and murders happening, that and I could tell from her clothes that she must come from a wealthy family, so who knows what certain unscrupulous individuals would do if they found her out there at night?"

"That's not what I meant, sempai." Sakura said, conflicted whether to go any further in voicing her concerns. It was clear to her that Ilya was a master in the grail war considering that her family was one of the founding clans that created the holy grail war. If 'grandfather's' lectures were true. However, what confused her more was the girls casual speech when addressing Shirou.

Meaning that for some reason or another, Illyasviel von Einzbern was interested in her sempai, and if her knowledge of the German family was of any concern, it can't be good, especially if the mark on her sempai's hand was what she that it was.

Sakura nearly had a panic attack when she saw the familiar marks issued by the grail to master candidates, as it proved that for one reason or another, Shirou had been chosen to compete in the Holy Grail War. Fortunately for her, the red head hadn't summoned a servant yet since the Matou girl's unique talents could tell whether a servant was around. She prayed that her sempai wouldn't get involved in the conflict.

While thinking this, Sakura needed to know what the Einzbern master was planning. With that in mind, she told Shirou that dinner would be ready in a few minutes, and he should change out of his school clothes before Fujimura-sensei arrives.

With him out the way Sakura walked up to the little girl flipping through the channels of the TV, "Miss Einzbern, normally I wouldn't question the types of guests that sempai brings into his home, but even I have my limits when it comes to his safety, so can you please tell me why you are here?".

Hearing her question, Illya decided to switch the remote off and look towards the plum haired girl. "Straight to the point I see miss Makiri, oh my mistake your family goes by the name of Matou nowadays, and to answer your question Sakura-san, the answer is no, is that sufficient for you?" She said in a sickeningly sweet tone.

Normally, Sakura would have stopped there. However, she wasn't about to stop there, especially when Shirou's safety was on the line. "Care to elaborate as to the reason why, Einzbern, I know for a fact that you have more important things to do what with the war going on, so I was wondering why you would accept Sempai's invitation, when you clearly don't need it."

"What is between myself and Shirou Emiya is personal and none of your business Matou Sakura, or should I say Tohsaka Sakura since that is your true name before the Makiri's took you in." Illya said without care.

As she heard this, Sakura's eyes burned with fury as she was reminded of the day that she was given away by her real father, thereby starting her personal hell at the hands of her new 'family'.

"I stopped being a Tohsaka the moment my parents gave me up." The plum haired girl shot back venomously. "However, I do know one thing miss Einzbern, and that is that Sempai is very important to me and someone that I do not want caught up in this meaningless war, so I will give you a bit of fair advice."

"If you harm even a single hair on sempai, I will make you regret it" Sakura Matou said her ultimatum as she stared at Illya with cold emotionless eyes, the kind that was acquired through years of physical and sexual abuse.

"I'll keep that in mind Miss Matou." Seeing her resolve, Illya said before turning her head to the TV once again to watch a very funny channel.

It was at that moment that the tiger decided to enter the premise "Shiroooou, is dinner ready yet, I'm hungry, huh? Sakura who is this?" The schoolteacher said as she pointed as the white haired girl by the table.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Needless to say that by the time that Shirou went into the living room after changing, he had to frantically explain to Fuji-nee who Illya was, what she was doing here, and why, in order to prevent the 24 year old woman from misreading the situation, and accuse Shirou of being a lolicon with a thing for little girls. It didn't help that said little girl and Sakura were giggling by the sidelines while Fuji-nee swung Shirou round the air saying that she never raised him to be a sexual deviant.

By the time that the red head managed to clear up the misunderstanding, the four of them sat down and had dinner.

"Mmmmm, Sakura, this chicken you cooked is delicious. You've really outdone yourself this time." Shirou said as he eat a piece of the chicken that was roasted first, then cooked in order to maximize the flavor. It was an amazing piece of culinary art, considering that Sakura's specialty was western food, though Shirou just barely surpassed the girl when it comes to Japanese food and was just learning how to cook western food thanks to Sakura showing him a few recipes.

"Thank you sempai, though it's thanks to your teachings that I was able to become this good." The plum haired girl said as she helped herself to another helping.

"So this is what Japanese food tastes like, I'll admit that it's very good considering my preference for western food." Illya said from her side of the table as she was enjoying the meal.

"Ah that's right, you originally came from Europe didn't you Illyasviel-san. I'm sorry that I was able to prepare anything that suited your tastes more. I was worried that you didn't like Japanese food" Sakura answered from her side.

"It's alright. To be honest, this is the first time that I have ever tried Asian food. Most of my meals consisted of German food that was cooked by my maid Sella." As Illya replied, Taiga who had been listening in had her eyes widen.

"Really? A maid, I didn't know your family was that loaded Einzbern-san." Seeing the teachers confusion, the aristocrat nodded her head and continued.

"That's right Fujimura-san. The Einzbern's is an old and influential family that lives far to the north of Germany. We mainly deal in the beer and liquor industry which had been operating since World War II, so you could say that we have old money compared to other families."

Hearing this Fuji-nee was amazed and said "so then that makes you a sort of princess then. It's a good thing that you found her when you did Shirou. For once, that obsession with helping others finally paid off."

"What do you mean?, Helping people is always beneficial since they would help others in return." Shirou shot back at this remark by his guardian by conveying his naive thoughts.

"That still doesn't mean you can stay up late at night doing your hero stuff. After all, you have your education to consider, and not to mention the fact that it's dangerous outside" Taiga said to the red head.

"Honestly, you've been like this ever since Kiritsugu died. Whenever someone asks you for help or when you see someone in trouble, you charge in headfirst without concern for your own safety." Upon hearing the name 'Kiritsugu' Illya's ears perked up and decided to ask the schoolteacher something.

"Pardon me miss Fujimura, but what did you mean about Onii-chan here helping people?" She asked before Taiga decided to enlighten the little girl about her charges against Shirou's abnormal behavior.

"Fuji-nee, I think that you've said enough for today, can we please continue with our-" Shirou was about to as Taiga to stop before Sakura interrupted him.

"Fujimura-sensei, please continue" Sakura interrupted as she was listening to the conversation very seriously.

"Well, you know about how kids your age read comic books and manga about heroes and stuff, and about how they want to become heroes of justice when they grow up and fight crime, only to give up that dream as they grow older and wiser. Well, Shirou here is different in that he still wants to become a superhero even though he's almost out of his 2nd year of high school. Whenever he sees someone in trouble or needs help with something, he drops whatever he was doing and helps them out. Naturally, this leads to him being taken advantage of by most people due to his kindness. I tried to put a stop to it since I'm his legal guardian, but due to my work as a schoolteacher I just don't have the time what with marking tests, managing the Archery club, planning the lesson plan for the rest of the week and so on."

"Then there is the fact that Shirou has absolutely no hobbies or anything thing he likes to do for fun. He used to attend the Archery club as its vice captain, and even then he quit just last month"

"Fuji-nee, I didn't quit the club exactly. I just needed to have a break while I sort out what I wanted to do with my life. Mitsuzuri-san understood of my situation and said that she is keeping by spot on the team so I can come back whenever I feel like." Shirou explained. His reasons of leaving the archery club were lies as he needed to take a temporary leave of absence in order to prepare for the Holy Grail War. It didn't feel right having to lie to Fuji-nee like this, but it was necessary.

"That still didn't mean you had to spend an entire month to sort things out. Ayako-san has her hands full managing the team, especially when Shinji was made the vice-captain after you left." Taiga said as she described the situation in the Archery club to Illya who was interested, such as the fact that Sakura's brother frequently used his authority as the vice-captain to torment the first years mentally and damage their self-esteem by having them fire bows when they haven't even begun to use one yet and then mock their progress. Naturally, she couldn't do anything about it since the blue haired kid wasn't doing anything wrong but they told him to tone it down none the less.

"Fujimura-sensei, can you not speak about Nii-san like that. He's been really stressed lately so it's really been getting to him lately." Sakura said as she tried to defend her brother's actions.

"Oh sorry about that Sakura, I meant no offense. I was just thinking how much of a better job Shirou did as the vice-captain and was just drawing a comparison."

"Then there is the fact that talking about one of your students like that would net you a very harsh penalty from the principal" Shirou said, which caused him to receive an apologetic look from Fuji-nee.

"Shiiirou, I said I was sorry okay? Besides, I'm technically not a teacher when I'm not at home so it's alright." The brown haired woman replied back

"How did someone like her become a teacher in the first place?" The red head to sigh as he thought before continuing to munch down his dinner.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After dinner was finished, Fujimura-sensei decided that it was about time she left for home as she needed to grade some tests, meanwhile Shirou asked if Sakura wanted to use the bath first since she was going home in about an hour or so. With her in another part of the house, Shirou decided that it was time he got some answers from Illya.

"You have some very interesting people in your life, Onii-chan." The little girl said as she stared at him with those ruby colored eyes.

"Interesting is putting it likely. Sure, Sakura isn't as nearly as bad, but Fuji-nee is 24 years old for god's sake and she still acts like she's 12, no offense Illya"

"None taken, though I am interested in what she said about you wanting to become a 'Hero of Justice.' Is that really what she meant?" It was such a bizarre dream that the girl had to know where he got such a thing in the first place.

"That's true more or less, though to tell you the truth is more of a borrowed ideal. It was something that my father had, before he had to give it up as he grew older." Shirou said as he noticed that Illya's eyes darkened a bit at the mention of his father. Seeing that the time was now, the red head decided to get this out the way and hopefully settle this without it getting into a fight.

There was no way he would be able to get away from a servant in one piece. He just had to thank Raiga for getting the house insured last month.

"To be perfectly honest, Illyasviel. I have an ulterior motive for approaching you tonight." the red head admitted as Illya looked at him with widened eyes, before sporting a dangerous smile as she said.

"Oh, and what pray tell is that Onii-chan?" Ready to summon Berserker the moment the red head tried anything, it was something that his father the 'magus killer' would have done in this situation.

Instead she got an unexpected question, as Shirou took a deep breath and said. "Does the name Irisviel von Einzbern mean anything to you?"

This of course left the girl sitting there, her mouth wide open as she slowly got the words out. "How? How do you know that name?"

Why did he know the name of her mother, the homunculus who managed to give birth to her, despite the fact that homunculi have no reproductive capabilities, and was used as the lesser grail for the fourth heavens feel. That would be Illya's fate as well since the fifth came forty years early.

Understanding of her confusion, Shirou decided to elaborate more on the subject. "To be perfectly honest, I didn't know that my father had been married until I learned about his wife a couple of years after I was adopted, though I doubt he would have told me about it since he wanted to keep any knowledge of the moonlit world as far away from me as possible"

The term 'moonlit world' was used by magi and mundanes who know about it in order to refer to things involving the supernatural that cannot be known to the general public, such as vampires (Shirou to this day still couldn't believe that the blood sucker were descended from an alien called type-moon), magi, executors of the holy church, and other things like ESP.

The fact that Shirou asked about her mother meant that he never knew that Kiritsugu and Irisviel had a child, meaning that his adopted father never told the boy. This, of course, left Illya feeling angry as she thought that the dead man didn't think that she was important enough. However, Shirou not only showed the girl kindness and compassion that her family never showed her, but he also invited her into his home, despite the fact that doing such a thing was paramount to suicide as it let the guest analyse the estate's defenses and identify weaknesses, which they could exploit should they decide to attack later on.

However, throughout the entire time she was here, her adopted brother had let his guard down around the constantly. This meant that either he was a total idiot that was too stupid to live or that he never considered her an enemy at all.

Of course, since he had been such a gracious host throughout the night, Illyasviel von Einzbern decided to repay his kindness by answering his question.

"She's my mother." The silver haired girl said with serious eyes locked on the red head. Hearing this, Shirou's fears were confirmed as he put the two pieces together.

"So, that means that Kiritsugu-san is your-" He was about to say before Illya interrupted him.

"That's right, the man that adopted you, Kiritsugu Emiya is in fact my biological father, the man you took away from me when he choose to raise you in this backwater country, instead of coming to see his own daughter who shares his own blood!" The little girl shouted that last bit, as years of loathing for her father had come flooding back to the surface.

She had expected him to beg for forgiveness or frantically deny any fault for not knowing. Instead, she saw him sink his head into his hands as he started talking to himself.

"I knew he was hiding something, ever since I heard that dad was married. He kept any knowledge of her to himself, as if he was hiding something." It was then that he opened his eyes in realization, as if he just thought of something that should have been obvious from the start.

"Of course, now that I think about it, the signs were all there and I never realized it, him frantically changing the subject when I asked one time if he had any kids with Irisviel, even when he never even denied the fact, then there were the times when he would leave Japan for about a month, never mentioning where and who he was seeing."

He then looked at Illya in the eyes and said. "Illya-nee-san I'm sorry for not knowing of your existence until now, but I think that you've been misinformed about my father"

"Care to repeat that Emiya Shirou?" she said. If what Illya could decipher from his mumbling, her father never disclosed her existence to his adopted son at all before he died. If so, could she really blame the red head for something that Kiritsugu never told him about? Was she just shifting her anger and frustrations on someone who by all rights didn't deserve it, when the actual target of her frustrations was already dead?

These thoughts were confusing to Illyasviel as she didn't know what to do with all this rage in her, the anger at her father for abandoning her for his adopted son, her rage at her family for torturing her in the name of 'training' and robbing her of most of her lifespan so that she would suffer an early death next year, and her resentment for her adopted brother for taking her father away from her. In a sense, it was understandable that she would summon the hero of madness and rage as her servant.

However, it was what said adopted brother next that really sent Illya's thoughts through the roof.

"When I was young, dad used to leave Japan for a month or two at least twice a year. He never mentioned where he goes or why. However, I think I finally figured out where he went during those trips. Illya-san, I think he left Japan to try and see you."

"What?" the daughter of the 'magus killer' said quietly as her mind tried to process what she just heard. That can't be right, she thought as she finally let out an outburst.

"You're lying!" She shouted. "Papa never went to see me since he left for Fuyuki city 10 years ago. My family said that he stayed in Japan looking after you"

"Think about what I said Illya-san. I know for a fact that dad went for about a month or two trying to get past the Einzbern;s bounded fields in order to get to you. If dad really cared about me more then you, then do you really think any father in his shoes would leave his own son alone for 2 whole months unless he had something very important to do." He calmly said.

"Even if what you say is true, papa would have gotten past the Einzbern bounded fields my family set up. Kiritsugu was very knowledgeable of that area of thaumaturgy and had devised a way to breach even the most heavily warded areas by identifying the structural weaknesses in the field. This would allow him to penetrate the Einzbern bounded field in a matter of hours when most magi would take weeks and even years to do the same"

"Dad was dying from a curse Illya," Shirou rebutted, which froze the human/homunculus hybrid in her tracks, since she never heard the cause of her father's death from her family.

"What kind of curse was it?" She asked as her adopted brother chose to enlighten his adopted sister of Kiritsugu's condition before he died.

"A powerful one, at least A++ in rank. It was so bad that not only did dad only have 5 years to live after he got it, but the curse practically destroyed his circuits and the Emiya family crest in the process. He was practically a shadow of his former self as he told me that he was unable to identify the weak points of even the weakest bounded fields as the curse dulled his senses as well. It was something that he contracted near the end of the Holy Grail War 10 years ago."

This new info caused Illya's eyes to widen in shock. The Einzbern homunculus was of course aware of the grails corruption due to her being the lesser grail vessel, as well as being aware of the existence of Avenger that was summoned during the third grail war. However, she didn't know that her father was cursed by the grail after the war since she was confined to the castle for ten years, but if what her brother said was true, then it explained why Kiritsugu never came to see her. It was because he couldn't.

It was at this point that the silver haired girl was beginning to develop a mental breakdown. Her hatred for her father and adopted brother was what kept her going, since she was going to die whether or not she survived the war.

As he saw his adopted sister clutch her head in pain Shirou went to Illya's side of the room and knelt down to her level. "Illya, are you alright? Do you need something to drink?"

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" the silver haired girl shouted as she pushed the physically older boy away with surprising strength.

As Shirou contemplated on what to do next, he suddenly went on alert as he heard a faint ringing sound coming from outside the room. Shirou stiffened as he immediately recognized the noise as the safety measure his father installed into the bounded field, which was designed to alert the house owner of any intruders with malicious intent.

This was not something he wanted to deal with at the moment, as he still had an Einzbern magus suffering a mid-life crisis in his living room to deal with. Sensing the change in the bounded field around the estate, Illya looked up to her adopted brother and asked. "What is that?"

"It's a safety precaution my old man set up around the house," The red head answered. "It's designed to detect intruders on the property with murderous intent against any of the occupants. It was the only thing he could set up before his condition worsened"

Suddenly, as Shirou was explaining things to Illya, he suddenly started sniffing the air like a dog. It was how Shirou was able to sense things enriched with prana as he had manifested one of the ways magi sense prana through their five senses.

Right now, there was an extremely strong scent coming from the ceiling right above Illya

"GET DOWN" he shouted as he threw himself towards a surprised silver haired girl, only to barely miss a long blade sprout from above and impale the area where the Einzbern master was sitting.

As the two of them recovered, they turned back to the one who almost killed them, which was a purple haired man in his mid to late twenties with his hair tied in a ponytail. He wore Japanese clothing and held an extremely long katana that would clearly be very hard for anyone else to wield.

"You have good instincts, boy. Not many can sense someone trying to kill them, and then react accordingly." The man said as he stood up from the wreckage of the lounge table and then held his sword in a lazy stance.

"Who are you? And what are you doing in my house?" Shirou demanded as he summoned Ends of the Earth to his hand, which surprised Illya, as she didn't think that her brother was capable of such magic. Her families intelligence reports suggested that her adopted brother was a third-rate magus, which funnily enough was technically true as the only spells the red head learned from his dad could be counted on one hand.

"Normally, I wouldn't give my name out to someone I have to kill, but since you're about to die I might as well tell you, I am a servant of the Assassin class, Kojirou Sasaki." He said in a polite voice, which earned him surprised looks from his would be targets, and for good reason too.

Servants like Assassin were actually legendary heroes from across time and space summoned from the throne of heroes by the grail in order to fight each over, as such they hide their true names behind code names like Saber, Lancer, Berserker, and so on, since any possible weaknesses they had during like were recorded in their legends.

However, not only did the person in front of both Illya and Shirou reveal that he was in fact a servant under the Assassin class, he had also revealed his true identity to the two, which meant that he was either incredibly stupid, or was so confident in his own abilities that revealing his true name wouldn't make any difference.

It was then that Assassin turned towards the silvered magus and said. "Greetings again master of Berserker. It's certainly strange that we would meet again under such unusual circumstances"

"Likewise, false servant," Illya shot back, which caused Shirou to raise an eyebrow as he was unfamiliar with how the two of them came to know each over. The Einzbern master sensing the red heads confusion decided to elaborate.

"He's a servant that guarded the gate atop Ryuudou temple, which served as Caster's territory since it sets atop a dormant leyline. When I went there with Berserker yesterday, he somehow managed to push back Berserker since he had the high ground was supported by Caster's magic at the time"

"It was a difficult fight none the less since neither myself nor Caster were unable to penetrate your servant's skin. I'm actually surprised that you and your servant decided to retreat, since there was obviously nothing stopping you from breaching the gate." The swordsman said, before Illya narrowed her eyes and decided to ask something.

"To be honest Assassin, I'm surprised Caster let you off your leash, since you obviously don't think too highly of her, so what exactly brings you here anyway?" Ilya asked, which caused the swordsman to point his sword at Shirou.

"I'm actually here to take his life, master of Berserker, since the servant Saber hasn't been summoned yet. My master thought that it would be too much of a risk for him to live lest he call the last of the seven to his side. It seems that she thinks very highly of his potential since she used a second command seal to order me to kill him. The first was used her first to keep me at the temple gate as a guard."

"I'm flattered." Shirou said as his mind went into overdrive as to how he was going to get out of this situation. The red head of course wasn't stupid enough to think that he could fight off a servant, since he heard his father's stories about the resurrected heroes based on the magus killer's experiences during the last war, then there was the fact that he didn't possess the master vision since he hasn't called Saber yet, meaning that he couldn't get a good look at Assassins stats, skills, or noble phantasms. He was going into the fight blind.

There was also the fact that Illya was with him right now, so he had to protect her from the servant of murder as well. Suddenly, the fact that his adopted sister was with him caused something to click in his brain.

"I'm afraid that I cannot let you do that Assassin," she said as the servant looked at the silver haired master in confusion

"Oh, and why is that little one?"

"Two reasons actually, the first is that Onii-chan is my prey to kill and no one else. The second is that I now have this massive headache from something that I just learned a moment ago, and you've just provided me with something to take my mind off it for a while, so I'm afraid that I'll have to ask you to die!" She said as she raised her hand in the air.

"Berserker!" She said before clicking her fingers, causing the mana behind her to shift, revealing something that Shirou which could only be described as a towering behemoth of black muscle and power. It was definitely a servant based on the fact that it had a similar scent to Assassin, but the difference between the two couldn't be more distant like comparing a 9mm handgun and a 50 caliber anti-tank rifle.

The Berserker in question was a bronze skinned giant of 2 meters height. He had muscles so massive that they bordered on grotesque, two mismatched eyes that were gold and red respectfully, and an angry mess of hair that waved around his head. He wore an armored kilt around his waist and wielded a massive one sided broadsword made of stone that looked like the cross between a sword and an axe.

As intimidating as Assassin felt like when he showed up, this 'monster' was even worse. Shirou tried his hardest not to look intimidated. The feeling that the red head got from him was mindless, unstoppable rage and power. He stared at the servant like a deer caught in the headlights. He tried to avert his eyes, but found that he couldn't turn away, like watching an earthquake or a tsunami. The behemoth before him was more like a force of nature than a servant.

Assassin meanwhile stood there with a calm face, but he was secretly nervous. He now had to deal with the strongest servant in the entire war, when this was supposed to be a simple assassination. When he faced the mad servant last time at the Ryuudou temple gate, he had barely managed to push the servant back thanks to a combination of his skill, the high ground, and Casters magic.

Now he was facing the mad servant again, on even ground with the giant, and without Casters magic. Even worse was that thanks to Casters second command seal, Assassin wouldn't be able to leave until he managed to kill the red headed boy next to the master of Berserker. However, these disadvantages suited Assassin just fine.

Due to being a wraith instead of a heroic spirit unlike the other servants summoned for the war, the false hero only answered Casters call so that he could fight a worthy opponent. Despite the fact that he was robbed of his mind, what greater opponent for him to face then the greatest hero of Greece?

"That's enough Assassin, return to me now, you don't stand a chance against Berserker at the moment." His 'master' said via the mental link that he had. The witch had been viewing what was happening at the Emiya estate through the purple haired servants eyes.

"I'm afraid that I cannot do that, fox. You see, I finally have a chance to fight a great opponent after being stuck at that temple gate since you summoned me." The false servant replied.

"Don't be a fool Assassin. You're facing Heracles himself under the Berserker class. Thanks to his God hand noble phantasm you won't even be able to make a scratch since your strength is only at C. Besides, you're more useful to me in one piece rather than many." The witch of Colchis shouted via the link as she considered using another command seal to order her disobedient servant.

"My my, is that concern I hear in your voice, witch? I must be hearing things. Regardless, I can't run away even if I wanted to. Thanks to your command seal, I won't be able to leave until I kill that boy, and you already used your first one to bind me to the temple gate as its guard, so you only have one left.

Underneath Ryuudou temple, Caster bit her lip as she knew that Assassin was right, since she had already used up two of her servants command seals, the Witch of betrayal only had one left. If she used it to force the false servant to retreat, she wouldn't be able to control her servant anymore.

"Why is it that all men tend to be such pig-headed idiots?" She thought angrily as things would turn out badly for Caster no matter what she does. On one hand, she could allow Assassin to have his duel, resulting in the false servant getting slaughtered by the demi-god and leaving her temple unguarded for any of the other servants to invade. Alternatively, she could use her last command seal to order Assassin to retreat, allowing her to spare Assassin a pointless death but will leave her without a way to control the servant, unless she can convince him not to kill her.

After considering both options, Caster decided to go with the one that would leave her the largest chance for a comeback and concentrated on her hand.

"By the power of my third command seal I order you servant Assassin, to cease your attack on Shirou Emiya and return to Ryuudou temple." She said before the final mark on her hand signaling her master status vanished.

Back at the Emiya estate, Assassin cursed as he lowered his sword before saying. "My apologies master of Berserker, it seems that my master had ordered me to retreat via a command seal, so I must return to her side for now."

In response, Illya shrugged as she replied "That's alright, you wouldn't stand a chance against Berserker anyway, so in a way she saved you from becoming a smear on the carpet."

Hearing this, the swordsman nodded in acceptance before turning to Shirou. "It seems that luck has smiled upon you tonight, future master. You have a good stance for someone your age, but I'm afraid you'll have to summon your servant soon if you want any chance of surviving this war." He said before turning his back towards the two magi plus one servant.

"Until we meet again, Shirou Emiya." He said before vanishing into spirit form, leaving the resident red head and Ilya alone in the living room.

"Okay, so what now?" The keyblade wielder asked the master of Berserker, trying his best to ignore the mad servants gaze on his form, like how a predator eyes its prey.

"That's enough, Berserker. Return to spirit form for now." The homunculus declared to her servant, before the towering pile of muscle vanished into spirit form.

"After tonight's events, I think it's best if I return home for now, so can you inform Sakura-san when she gets out of the bath?" The white haired girl told the red head, who simply nodded in response.

"Illya-san, have you thought about what I said about dad?" He asked before he saw his adopted sister sighed and looked at him seriously.

"I'll admit that you've given me something to think about concerning our fathers actions, so I'm going to need time to sort this out." She said as she intended on interrogating her maids on whether or not her father actually tried and visit her. If that fails, then she would have to try her luck at getting grandfather to tell her the truth.

"Also, because you were so kind to me tonight let me offer you this bit of advice Onii-chan. If you seriously consider joining the Holy Grail war, then I suggest you summon your servant soon, because the only slots left right now are Saber and Archer."

It was then that she released a fair bit of killing intent, intensified by her materializing Berserker to prove her point. "However, if you do intend of standing in my way of winning the war, Berserker and I will not show you any mercy. Do we understand each over?"

Seeing the red head nervously nod his head, the Einzbern master left as Berserker dematerialized again, "until we meet again Onii-chan" she said before exiting the living room and leaving the confines of the Emiya estate.

As Shirou stood there trying to process what he just witnessed, Sakura made her self-known, "Sempai the bath is free…Sempai! What happened to the table!?"

His kouhai said in surprise before he sighed. Now, just how was he going to explain the destroyed wooden table and the man-sized hole in the ceiling?

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It took a while to come up an explanation, but Shirou managed to convince Sakura that the broken table and ceiling was caused by some heavy boxes that were stored in the attic, which was probably from the previous owner of the estate. Surprisingly enough, Sakura accepted this explanation, without digging any deeper since it was such a terrible lie on Shirou's part. Deciding to think about it later, the red head decided that he might as well walk Sakura home, since it was pretty dark outside.

The walk to the western residential district of Fuyuki city was uneventful since both Shirou and Sakura weren't very talkative. The red head said good bye to Shinji's sister at the steps of the Matou family home. He was about to leave when he stopped on the steps of the estate and turned to see a withered old man look at him from the shadows.

The old man apologized for spying on the red head from the shadows and introduced himself as Zouken Matou, Shinji and Sakura's grandfather, and the one who raised them since their parents passed away. It was then that he thanked Shirou for walking his granddaughter home, before walking towards the front door of the Matou estate.

Shirou meanwhile eyed the old man dangerously, making sure to be polite and note hostile to the old man. Based on what he knew from using structural analysis on the old man, the person called Zouken Matou was not what he appeared to be as what his body looked like, was actually hundreds of strange worm like creatures that had mixed together to form a human like shape.

What was even worse was that the worm like creatures making up Zouken's body were exactly like the ones the red head could sense inside Sakura's body.

Kiritsugu had previously told him that thaumaturgy in general was a pretty amoral art as it was capable of causing both great harm, as well as good. Some mage craft mysteries tended to alter certain characteristics of the human body such as different hair color or skin tone. Some magi would even inject foreign substances into their bodies as a way of enhancing their mysteries. Still, even knowing these things didn't stop Shirou from emptying the contents of his stomach when he found those 'crest worms' as they were called from his scan, swimming in his kouhai's body.

Normally, Shirou would have eradicated the little buggers as soon as he found them, but he found himself unable to do so since several worms were attached to some of Sakura's nerves, then there was the worm inside the girl's heart, which Shirou could tell was different from the rest. However, there was something else that set Shirou on edge. It was the fact that the worms in Sakura's body contained fragments of the curse that had eaten away at Kiritsugu's life.

The only way to remove the worms from Sakura's body without killing her in the process, would be to heal her body at a faster rate than the damage caused by removing the things attached to her nerves and heart. Shirou might be very good at healing magecraft, but regenerating nerves and organs was beyond even his abilities. However, there was an artifact in Shirou's possession that did just that.

However, Avalon wouldn't work without the prana provided by its true owner, meaning that if he wanted to save Sakura, then he needed to summon Saber tonight in order to activate the scabbards effects. That left him with finding a skilled enough surgeon to remove the worms.

Of course, what really set the red heads alarms in his head was someone who he saw on his way back to the Emiya estate. The person in question was a man in his early 20s wearing a black jacket with black pants and white shirt to match. He also had blonde hair and blood red eyes. This person had been staring at the Matou residence for a while now before his eyes gazed towards the red head.

As the two men's eyes meet, Shirou tried his hardest not to feel intimidated. After-all, from what he could sense, the man had an air of a servant in general, but at the same time he didn't. However, one fact that remained was that the person was extremely dangerous, someone that was on a whole other level from Berserker and Assassin.

The silence between the two lasted for a few seconds, before the red-eyed man scoffed at the teen and left, implying that Shirou was beneath him at the moment. The red head meanwhile let out a sigh of relief, as he didn't think that he would be able to survive a fight against something that was on the level of a servant.

30 minutes later, Shirou stood in his tool shed next to a summoning circle, in order to summon his servant. With the moon's light coming in through the window, he looked at his hand in order make sure that everything was ready.

Sure enough, the three marks were still there. For now, he could still make it in time to summon his own servant and enter the grail war. As for the summoning circle, Kiritsugu mentioned in his notes that the ritual in question is performed by the grail itself since it takes around 5,000,000 mages to summon a servant without aid from the grail. The only thing the master has to do is provide the appropriate catalyst to call a specific hero from the throne, recite the aria, and provide the prana needed for the servant to remain materialized.

Fortunately for the red head, while he was cleaning the tool shed a few years ago, he came across a formal craft array etched into the stone floor that had been left there for some time. Based on what Shirou could analyze, the circle was designed to draw mana from the nearby leylines and channel them into the centre of the circle.

As the years went by, Shirou left the circle in his shed untouched, since it was likely that he would have a use for it in the future. Now, it seemed as if that has paid off, as the red head intended to use the array as the summoning circle needed to call his servant.

With that sorted out, he checked that everything was in order before summoning his keyblade. Since the red head had absolutely no idea how to enact the summoning ritual, he decided to use the keyblade as a focus to summon his servant by force. The keyblade possessed the ability to allow mage-craft to be cast without the need for arias.

Hoping that it would work, Shirou opened all 27 of his magic circuits and channeled all of it into his keyblade. Suddenly, a bright flash of light emitted from his sword before the red head pointed Ends of the Earth at the summoning circle. Moments later, a beam of light erupted from the blade and hit the array, causing the tool shed to erupt in a bunch of bright light.

When the light cleared, a complex circle had overlaid itself on the first one, it consisted of several symbols symbolizing earth, fire, ice, lightning, wind, light, and darkness, with a keyhole symbol in the centre.

The red head walked up to the keyhole symbol, placed his keyblade in the centre blade first, then turn it clockwise until it was turned 90 degrees to the side.

Suddenly the circle made a clicking noise, as if a gate was just unlocked, before the red head backed away in order to let the summoning continue.

As the red head stared at the circle he was greeted with a sight that practically took his breath away. The figure that showed up in the centre of the summoning array was definably a knight, but with some key differences.

First, the person in question was female and a foot or two shorter then Shirou, around Sakura's height at least. Second was that the girl in question had blonde hair tied in a bun reminiscing of a lion's mane, a single strand of hair hanging from the top of her head, and was currently keeping her eyes closed. What he could see though, was that she was dressed in a royal blue dress made of old fashioned fabric, wore silver armor around her chest, arms, legs, and hips.

Finally, she was holding something that from Shirou could tell was invisible to the naked eye. The reason the red head could tell she was holding something was because her fingers were in a gripping posture, as if she was holding a sword. No, Shirou knew that she was holding a sword, how he knew this was beyond his knowledge.

It was then that she opened her eyes to reveal jade green orbs that practically sparkled in the moonlight, "Servant Saber has heeded your summons, I ask you, are you my…Shirou?!" The blond knight said in surprise as her eyes widened in shock.

The red head of course had only one thing to say to this.

"Huh?!"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

**Hello Viewers, Epicgamer484 here, and welcome to chapter 3 of Sword of Earth.**

**As most of you could tell from the first part of the chapter, what Shirou experienced was inspired by the dream sequence of the first Kingdom hearts game, something that die hard Kingdom hearts fans would recognize right away.**

**Then there is to consider the fact that the red head could use Terra's spells from birth by sleep, which is the main reason why I had him learn tracing early, so he could learn a wider arsenal of spell aside from the basics of thaumaturgy.**

**(Spoiler alert, read at your own risk)**

**Also for those of you curious, the reason that Saber recognizes Shirou is because had travelled to a world linked to Arthurian Britannia of the late 6th century during the late future, which I might do as a side-story or if anyone wants to adopt if they are interested, needless to say this causes a mass amount of confusion for the two, which I will touch on next chapter.**

**Finally I am starting a poll on whether or not Bazett fraga would keep Lancer rather then get her hand chopped off by Kotomine, the reason for this is because of two reasons, the first is that the enforcer rivals Ciel in both experience and magic so having her around would serve as a sufficient challenge for Shirou since he has Terra's keyblade and skills.**

**Finally the thought of the two of them fighting each over next chapter while their servants have their own duel is just too good to pass up, so if you want to vote, go to my profile page and leave your vote.**

**As always please review and see you next time.**

**I do not own the characters associated with this fic, they are the property of Type moon, Square-Enix, and Disney interactive.**


End file.
